Visiting our hospitals

Last updated: 1 November 2021

Please attend appointments by yourself if you can, to minimise the spread of infection, unless you/ the patient falls under the special circumstances list described below.

From Tuesday 2 November our visiting hours for adult wards at Cheltenham General Hospital and Gloucestershire Royal Hospital are 11am to 8pm, 7 days a week.

• Only 1 visitor may visit a patient at a time for a 2 hour period each day. Time slots must be booked with ward staff to ensure that only 2 visitors are in a bay at any one time
• All visits must be booked through the ward you are visiting. See our wards and departments for telephone numbers
• Visiting outside these arrangements may be possible in special circumstances (see below)

COVID tests

Visitors should order a rapid swab (lateral flow) test and complete it before visiting an inpatient at our hospitals. The rapid swab test is a nasal swab, which provides test results after 30 minutes.You can order rapid swab tests from the NHS.UK website, or collect up to 7 rapid tests from your local pharmacy or test site (details of how to do this, including getting a code that pharmacies may ask for, on NHS UK).

The children's ward and neonatal intensive care is open for visiting, with the following restrictions:

• Visiting is restricted to parents, carers or guardians only
• Only 2 visitors are allowed per child at any one time
• Please discuss siblings visiting with the nurse in charge
• Only 2 visitors are permitted on the neonatal ward at any one time, this should be parents, carer or guardians only; if parents, both can visit at the same time.

See our maternity section for details about maternity visiting

• Patients may be accompanied where appropriate and necessary to assist their communication and/or to meet their health, emotional, religious or spiritual care needs.
• One parent or guardian may accompany a person under the age of 16 to the Emergency Department, Minor Injury and Illness Units, or to an Outpatients appointment.

If you would like to request a visit for exceptional reasons or to provide personal care and support to a vulnerable patient, please speak to the nurse in charge of the ward.

You may accompany adults that require support to our hospital, if you are:

• their carer or they have particular support needs

People who are allowed to have an adult accompany or visit them for longer than 2 hours in our hospitals include:

• patients under the age of 16
• people with dementia, delirium or a cognitive impairment
• people with mental health needs
• people with autism or learning disabilities
• people with impaired mobility

Visiting may also be possible for patients receiving bad news, and for patients who are critically ill or dying, as long as:

• you and members of your household do not have symptoms of coronavirus, like a fever or cough
• you have not been told to self-isolate or shield for health reasons

This is limited to 2 visitors. Unless it has been agreed with our infection prevention and control team, you cannot visit:

• dedicated COVID-19 wards
• patients who have been exposed to coronavirus (COVID-19)

• If you are planning to collect a patient leaving hospital, please contact the ward for instructions on where to meet them. Only one person should enter the hospital building to collect a patient.
• Please do not wait for patients inside the hospital building, unless you have been asked to by a member of staff. This is because having lots of people inside the hospital increases the risk of infection to patients, staff and volunteers.