Visiting hours

What are the visiting hours?

Restrictions are in place at the Bristol Royal Hospital for Children (BRHC) and paediatric areas. This means that although there are no restrictions on visiting times the following guidance applies :

• Only two adult visitors will be allowed per bed
• No siblings or friends are allowed; this is to reduce the risk of infection and protect our patients.

You may be asked to leave if you or your family members are unwell with symptoms of a sudden fever, cough, sore throat, headache, muscle aches or diarrhoea and vomiting.

If your child is on a ward with restricted visiting in place please avoid using communal areas of the hospital e.g. shared parent's facilities , dinning and sitting rooms. 

If you are resident in hospital accommodation or Ronald McDonald House, Sams House, CLIC Accommodation and begin to feel unwell with symptoms of a sudden fever, cough, sore throat, headache, muscle aches or diarrhoea and vomiting.  Please let the accommodation staff know and stay in your room as much as possible avoiding communal areas of the house.

These visiting restrictions will remain in place until further notice.

Exceptions to these rules may be authorised by the ward sister or the nurse in charge in extraordinary circumstances. Please discuss with ward staff or phone ahead of your visit, if you have any questions.

How will restricting visiting help prevent infections?

This will help in a number of ways. Firstly, it will help us reduce infections. We can make sure our wards are spotlessly clean as the less people there are on a ward, the more thorough our cleaning staff can be. 

Secondly, the reduced number of people coming onto the wards means there is less risk of visitors accidently bringing infections such as seasonal flu and norovirus (diarrhoea and/or vomiting) into the hospital.

Shorter visiting times will also ensure that patients get more time to rest, which is vitally important for recovery after surgery or illness.

Why are children under 11 years of age not allowed onto adult wards?

Young children are more at risk of acquiring an infection such as seasonal flu or norovirus so this restriction is as much to protect them as the patients.

Children are also more likely to be harbouring this kind of infection and may not fully follow infection control requirements such as thorough hand washing.

Why are we only allowing two visitors for each visiting session?

This is to keep the number of people that are coming onto our wards to an absolute minimum, which is important in reducing the risk of infection.

When visiting, what other precautions can relatives and friends take to help prevent infections?

There are a number of things that visitors can do to help prevent infections:

• Do not visit if you are - or have been - ill with colds, coughs, flu or diarrhoea and vomiting, until you have been free of symptoms for 48 hours
• clean your hands with the alcohol gel or with soap and water before you visit a patient and again when you leave a ward
• only bring in essential supplies for patients as clutter on and around the bed makes it difficult to keep clean. For this reason our policy is to restrict the number of items on the locker or bed table to a mximum of five
• do not bring in food that could stay on lockers unwrapped, such as fruit. Instead bring in items such as individually wrapped sweets or biscuits
• if bottles of alcohol hand gel are empty then please tell staff
• if you notice that a staff member has forgotten to clean their hands then please tell them, they are happy to be reminded!
• sit on chairs and not on beds
• tell a member of staff if you have any particular concerns about infection control.

Further information

• Norovirus information for patients