Northampton General Hospital visiting returns to pre-Christmas rules after 11-day ban

Visiting rules at Northampton General Hospital have returned to what they were before Christmas.

On December 29, normal visiting was suspended at the Cliftonville hospital due to a “significant increase” in cases of Covid, flu and other respiratory illnesses.

Now, Covid-19 cases have dropped from 71 on December 29, 2022 to 45 on Monday January 9, 2023, so visiting restrictions have been relaxed.

Patients on adult wards will now be able to have one visitor for one hour per day.

An NGH spokesman said: “With immediate effect visiting arrangements on our adult inpatient wards are now returning to our pre-Christmas visiting arrangements, which is one visitor for one hour per day during either 2-4pm or 6-8pm in our Covid negative zones.

“Covid-19 cases at NGH have fallen from 71 cases and 45 flu cases on December 29, to 45 Covid-19 and 26 flu beds today (January 9) and the trend appears to be downward.

“Infections have fallen and we feel we have now reached a point where we can relax some of the measures we have taken to protect our patients.

“We understand just how important visiting is to patients and how it helps them to recover, and we need to balance this very carefully against the risk of infections being brought into the hospital.”

Visiting can vary on certain wards. Check the NGH website for more.

Kettering General Hospital’s (KGH) visiting restrictions were relaxed on Friday (January 6).

A critical incident status remains in place at both NGH and KGH after first being implemented on December 27, 2022.