Posted: 23 March 2020

Outpatient appointments to be non face-to-face 

As the Chief Medical Officer has stated, routine NHS services will inevitably come under pressure as COVID-19 (coronavirus) spreads. The NHS has well-established escalation protocols to respond to situations such as this.

The Trust has taken the decision to move all clinically appropriate outpatient appointments to a non-face-to-face setting.  We are not at this stage cancelling any outpatient clinics unless we need to on a case-by-case basis.

This is to support ‘social distancing’ guidance and means patients can avoid unnecessary journeys at the current time, reducing their chance of infection.

We are currently in the process of informing all patients whose appointment will be changed from a hospital based appointment to a consultation over the phone.

The best and latest information on COVID-19 is available online.

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/