A temporary change to keep our urgent and emergency services running

Our team are working incredibly hard to ensure we can run as many services as possible during the busy winter period. Unlike previous years, and in addition to usual winter pressures, we have been greatly impacted by the increase in Covid-19 infection rates in recent weeks.

Based upon what we are seeing now and looking ahead, we anticipate that the demand for our services will continue to rise as we approach the end of the year.  

So that we can continue to see and treat those who need us urgently, we have taken the difficult decision to temporarily stop our non-urgent services from Tuesday 22 December 2020. The services that will be affected include planned procedures and operations as well and routine outpatient services at our hospital and some non-urgent adult community services.

By temporarily stopping non-urgent services we will be able to free up staff and increase space on our wards to safely treat patients who need emergency, critical or Covid-19 care.

Not all services will be affected by this temporary change. We will continue to carry out cancer treatments and our emergency department remains open 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

As always, we put the safety of our patients and staff first and although we do understand that this will be disappointing for those who will have their procedure paused for now, please be assured that we will be in touch as soon as we can to reschedule.

What will happen now if you had a planned procedure?

• We will be in touch with you directly if the temporary changes to our services will impact your care

• If you have not been informed of any changes to your care, please do not contact Whittington Health and attend your appointment as normal

• We will look to reschedule your procedure as soon as we can and we will be in touch with you. At the moment we unfortunately cannot give an exact date or indication as to when this will be

• If your appointment or procedure has been cancelled and your condition worsens please contact your hospital service or your GP

This is a challenging end to what has been an incredibly difficult year and so we would like to thank our community for their continued support and using our services safely throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.