Covid Guidance

COVID infections are still occurring in the community and COVID can still cause significant health problems. Most people have now been vaccinated and another round of vaccinations is going to occur during the Autumn. In particular, COVID infection can cause significant problem in healthcare settings and especially in surgical patients, so we continue to make every effort to ensure that our surgical facilities are free of COVID - that includes patients, visitors and staff.

Your safety remains our priority, and we are continuing to provide expert care with additional safety measures in place.

Currently, we are seeing patients in all clinics. Your first consultation and follow-up post-surgery will be face-to-face. Ongoing care may be delivered by telephone or video link if preferred.

All surgical sites are now operating normally; we are working at full capacity to catch up with the backlog. We have measures in place to make it safe to go ahead with planned surgery; all patients are tested for COVID before they are admitted to hospital for major surgery.

There is evidence that patients are at risk if they have major surgery within 7 weeks of a COVID infection; unless surgery is urgent, we delay major surgery for 7 weeks following a positive COVID test; This may be longer if patients have a severe COVID infection, or have residual COVID symptoms. It is important to let us know if you have surgery planned and have a positive COVID test, as we may need to reschedule your surgery

In line with Government guidance, we are asking visitors not to visit the hospital if you have any COVID-19 symptoms. For further information relating to Covid please visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

With regards vaccination, we encourage patients to proceed with the COVID vaccination if offered; vaccination should take priority over planned surgery. Current advice is that surgery should not take place between 2 and 4 weeks after vaccination.

Last updated: September 2022.