An increasing number of hospitals may be forced to ban visitors as part of “difficult choices” made to stymie the spread of Omicron, an NHS official has warned.
Services have already been limited at hospitals across the UK as Covid infections reach record levels. Hospitals in South Shields and Sunderland, and Northampton General and Kettering General in Northamptonshire, are the latest to suspend visitors to adult inpatients.
Morriston Hospital in Swansea, Wales, also introduced stricter measures today, announcing that its emergency department will now treat only patients with life-threatening illness or serious injury.
NHS Confederation chief executive, Matthew Taylor, said hospital managers are having to make very difficult choices and that excluding visitors “is one of those very difficult choices”.
Full story in iNews, 1 January 2022