The safety of our patients and staff remains our top priority. This means face masks must still be worn by patients, visitors and staff in our hospitals. In line with national guidance we will continue to follow all necessary infection prevention and control regulations including wearing masks and social distancing. It is vital we continue to have these safeguards in place to help keep you, our vulnerable patients and our staff safe.

To keep you safe, we have a number of measures in place across our hospitals. These include:

• Restricted access to our hospitals 
• All staff must wear a surgical face mask; all visitors must wear a face covering whilst in our hospitals
• All staff and visitors must sanitise their hands at the entrance to our hospitals; there are also sanitising stations at regular points throughout our hospitals
• Front door screening for staff, patients and visitors to ensure everyone in our hospitals are symptom free, including a temperature check and screening questions
• Enhanced cleaning 
• Phone / virtual appointments

Planned care at King George Hospital

King George Hospital is where we are carrying out our planned surgeries and procedures. Find out more below about how we are keeping patients safe when visiting us for planned care.

Screening at King George Hospital 

So that we can safely restart more outpatient clinics, we’re screening all outpatients and visitors arriving to King George Hospital to help reduce the risk of Covid-19 infection transmission. On arrival to one of the entrances to King George Hospital, patients and visitors will be taken to a private area and will be asked to have their temperature checked and to answer a few questions.

If the screening identifies that the patient or visitor may have has symptoms of Covid-19, they will be advised to go home and self-isolate in line with national guidance and get a test. Their appointment will be cancelled and rebooked for two weeks’ time.

Patients will also receive a phone call the day before their appointment to go through some screening questions. Patients will be asked to call the hospital the day before their appointment if they have symptoms suggestive of Covid-19,  this will help to prevent patients making their way to their appointment and being turned away. if they have symptoms of Covid-19. It’s really important for the health of our communities that we are able to restart Outpatients appointments and our priority is keeping us all safe while doing this.

Planned surgery and colour-coded zones at King George Hospital

A phased re-introduction has begun of routine planned surgeries at King George Hospital (KGH). Due to Covid-19 we had to defer planned surgeries for a number of patients in line with national guidance. The continuing threat and impact of this virus means we cannot simply wait for it to pass, so we have restructured a number of our services so we can begin to reintroduce them safely.

We have introduced a number of measures including zoning sections of KGH, restricting public access and staff movement, creating new entrances, and increasing patient pre-assessment checks.

Patients offered a planned surgery appointment will be required to self-isolate for a period of time (dependent on the procedure they are undergoing) before and after their surgery. They will also have an antigen swab test, 48 to 72 hours before their surgery and have a temperature check on the day of their procedure.  They will only enter the ‘green’ zone of KGH, and they will have their own dedicated entrance and exit.

Staff working with these patients in the green zone will be required to complete a self-assessment and have a temperature check at the start of each shift. In doing this we are making the green zone as safe and as Covid-19 free as we possibly can. We will review our processes at every step, making any necessary adjustments to ensure our patients can be treated and staff can work, as safely as possible.

Download the map showing new entrances and drop off points: 

King George Hospital external map [pdf] 156KB