Coming to Sheffield Children’s – helping keep you safe

If you’re coming to Sheffield Children’s for an outpatient appointment at any of our sites, staying as an inpatient or visiting the Emergency Department or as a visitor to these areas, we are working hard to make sure everyone is safe and looked after.

Update on 5 January 2020:

Sheffield Children’s is open and we are continuing to work hard to ensure it is safe for patients and their families to come to us.

Please continue to come to booked appointments or scheduled surgery. If anything changes, we will be in touch with you directly.

Our Emergency Department is also open if any child or young person aged 16 or under needs urgent medical care.

When you come to Sheffield Children’s please remember:

• Wear a face covering
• Only one parent or carer to accompany a patient. For extenuating circumstances, ward or department managers will work with families individually.
• Wash your hands regularly
• Keep 2 metres apart
• Don’t come to the Trust if you have COVID symptoms unless it is for urgent care. Let us know and we can reschedule your appointment or surgery.

If you have any questions about your appointment, please call the number on your appointment letter.

Here are some of the ways we are helping keep patients and parents or carers safe when coming to Sheffield Children’s:

• Restrictions: Only one parent or carer to accompany a patient during their time with us. This parent or carer is the sole person to accompany the patient, no one else can visit or change places unless there are extenuating circumstances discussed directly with the ward or department manager. This policy will stay in place over the festive period, apart from those with agreed arrangements made with the ward. If the child or young person needs a second person with them, please discuss this prior to arriving where possible.
• All staff are wearing surgical masks as a minimum. They will be wearing other personal protective equipment when treating a patient, the type of PPE depends on the type of care the patient is receiving. You can find out more about what PPE looks like by visiting the patient resources page here. You can also download a poster pack and make your own PPE people.
• All patients and accompanying parent or carers need to wear a face covering when coming onto a site. We ask that people bring their own but if they can’t, we can provide a mask. Everyone needs to wear a mask at all times on site. This includes at the bedside if Sheffield Children’s staff or other patients/their family are in the room.
• There are more opportunities to wash and sanitise hands on all sites – the play team have even made a song for you to sing whilst you wash
• There are lots of 2 metre social distancing reminders across the sites – from posters to floor stickers with Theo bear reminding everyone to keep your distance.
  
• There are screens around reception areas and hubs to help protect staff, patients and families.
• There are less patients coming into the Trust as lots of appointments are still happening through video call or phone call.
• Waiting area spaces have been moved around to help social distancing.
• There are extra cleaning teams throughout the Trust who are doing lots more cleaning than usual. We have also changed the type of cleaning solution used to something which is proven to be more effective against viruses.
• Patients coming for elective surgery will have a COVID-19 test three days before their surgery.
  If a patient is positive for COVID-19, surgery may be postponed until a later date. However, if the patient is positive for COVID and needs urgent surgery, there are plans in place to make patients receive the care they need.
• All Sheffield Children’s staff know that if they have any of the signs of COVID they need to self-isolate, get tested and stay at home if it is positive. The Trust also follows the relevant test and trace procedure.

Self isolating and coming to the Trust

If you or your household are isolating due to COVID  (this could be due to symptoms, instruction from schools, workplaces, Test and Trace, or isolating after travel to any of the areas not on the travel corridor list) please let us know and we can rearrange any face to face appointments or surgery.

However, if you or your child needs emergency care at any time do not hesitate to seek help.

Find the latest information on when you need to self-isolate here and information on travel here.

Videos

Watch our videos about coming to Sheffield Children’s:

If you’re coming to the hospital, we’ve made these videos about outpatients and surgery:

If you’re going to the Ryegate Therapy Block:

The team at the Ryegate Therapy Block have explained their processes for coming to an appointment

Frequently asked questions

• Video appointments
• Coming for surgery
• Outpatients

Message from our Director of Nursing

Sally Shearer, Director of Nursing at Sheffield Children’s said: “We understand patients and families may be anxious about coming for an appointment or to the hospital during this time and we want to reassure them we are doing everything we can to make sure our spaces are clean, safe and socially distanced as well as providing our staff with necessary PPE and our patients with face coverings. Staff across the Trust are on hand to support any patient who needs our care, whether it’s an emergency, planned appointment or elective surgery, so please don’t hesitate to come to us and seek medical help when it is needed.”