New visiting times on trial at Royal Surrey

Visiting times have been extended at the Royal Surrey County Hospital to ensure that patients can spend more time with their loved ones during the day. 

Visiting on the main wards is currently between 2 and 4pm and 6 and 8pm and the two hour break is to accommodate meal times and treatment.  The change being trialled for the next month is the removal of the break for meal times and visiting will be 2 – 8pm every day. 

Director of Nursing and Patient Experience Louise Stead said: 

“We are trialling the changes to visiting times to make it easier and more convenient for visitors to spend time with patients.  We also know that early afternoon is the busiest time for our car parks and we are hoping that the new times will help to reduce pressure on patient and visitor parking as visitors will have more choice about when they come to visit. 

“The Trust is also exploring the option of extending visiting times even further and during the Jubilee weekend, visitors will be able to visit from 10am to 8pm.  

“However, we do ask for visitors’ cooperation during the trial to extend visiting as our doctors and nurses will need to continue to provide care and treatment and it may be necessary for visitors to temporarily step out while this is done.” 

The trial will run until the end of May and a decision on whether to permanently change the visiting times will be made soon after.