Coronavirus (COVID-19)

Coronavirus (COVID-19)

This information was updated and is correct as of 4 October 2021.

COVID-19 Homepage	General/visiting Information for Bristol and Weston
Outpatient hospital appointments (not including maternity)	Maternity services
Share your experiences of our services during COVID-19	Share a message with your loved one in hospital

Please use the sections above to find out the latest information about visiting, outpatient appointments, maternity services, how to share your experiences of our services during COVID-19, and how share a message with your loved one in hospital. Below you can find the latest information on guidance on face masks and advice around lateral flow testing.

Everyone accessing or visiting our healthcare services must continue to wear a face mask and follow social distancing rules from 19 July 2021.

The   national guidance for healthcare settings remains unchanged. This means anyone coming into hospital before and after 19 July 2021 must continue to:

• Clean your hands before entering and leaving the building and use the hand sanitiser outside each ward, department or area.
• Wear a surgical face mask (unless exempt from doing so) which are available at all hospital entrances. Guidance around exemptions is available on the   Government website. Please notify us on attendance if you are exempt from wearing a face mask. The Trust will endeavour to make reasonable adjustments, if appropriate.
• Give others space. Continue to follow the maximum room and lift capacity advice.

These measures are important so that the most vulnerable people can continue to safely attend hospital, and to help protect our staff and patients by reducing the risk of infection.

We strongly advise hospital visitors to all hospital sites, to carry out a lateral flow test before coming into the hospital. This is for the safety of patients, staff and visitors. Visitors can order lateral flow test kits from the COVID-19 website and then report the test result on the national COVID-19 website.

Pregnant women and their support people are advised to undertake lateral flow testing twice weekly during pregnancy and test within 24 hours before an appointment. Pregnant women and their support people are able to   order tests online to self-administer at home and report your COVID-19 rapid lateral flow test result on the main COVID-19 website.

Please do not attend if you have any COVID-19 symptoms/have tested positive or you've been advised to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace.