PATIENTS, staff, and visitors are required to wear a face mask inside Winchester hospital, this comes despite the trust announcing last week that rules would be dropped.

Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT), which runs hospitals in Basingstoke, Andover, and Winchester made the decision last week to drop face-covering rules after “working closely with our infection prevention team”.

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Despite this, yesterday HFFT announced a u-turn on the rules stating surgical masks must be worn by all visitors from July 1 across all three hospitals due to an increase in Covid positive patients.

Dr Lara Alloway, chief medical officer at Hampshire Hospitals, said: “From today we have taken the hard decision to require that surgical masks be worn by all persons – staff, visitors and patients – on our sites. This applies to all non-clinical areas, inclusive of corridors, waiting/ staff rooms and offices, as well as clinical areas such as wards. In addition, we strongly encourage social distancing of at least 1 metre in our hospitals whenever possible.

“These measures have been brought in due to a significant increase in the number of Covid-19 positive patients in our hospitals, very high rates in the community and increasing levels of staff sickness. At present, we are making no changes to our visiting policies.

"We know that these changes are challenging and we would like to reassure everyone that they will only be in place for as long as they are necessary to ensure the safety of our patients, visitors and staff.”

As of yesterday (July 1) across all three hospitals, there were 133 Covid positive patients, 45 at Basingstoke, 72 at Winchester and 16 at Andover.

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The updated guidance will mean that patients and staff will have to wear a face mask in all areas of the hospital including non-clinical areas including corridors, outpatient locations and restaurants.

The change in guidance comes after national Covid guidance which made face coverings a requirement inside healthcare settings was withdrawn in April this year.

It was also reported nationally that a letter from health chiefs said that patients visiting A&E, hospital outpatient appointments, and GP surgeries no longer needed to wear masks “unless this is a personal preference”.

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