Plymouth’s Derriford Hospital has announced a temporary pause in non-critical inpatient surgery due to the “growing number of Covid patients and a need to ensure we can keep everyone safe”.
Chief operating officer Kevin Baber said: “We appreciate how difficult it is for a patient to have their surgery cancelled and apologise for the distress and inconvenience this causes.”
He added: “We have to ensure patients who have suspected or confirmed Covid are safely cared for away from those patients without Covid. This involves reconfiguring our wards to ensure everyone remains safe.
“We will be looking to resume planned inpatient surgery as soon as possible.”
He said patients affected have been contacted directly so any who have not heard from the hospital should attend as planned.
Derriford remains open for emergencies but only those people who really need it should to attend the emergency department.
The hospital is one of a number which have cancelled some some non-critical surgery due to an increase in admissions of patients with Covid-19.
Mr Baber added: "Our aim over the coming days is to reduce the number of patients in our hospital (overall occupancy) as we need extra space and staff during this pandemic to care for different groups of patients: those with COVID, those who need urgent operations and those who are medically unwell.
"We remain open for emergencies and we continue to operate as the region’s Major Trauma Centre. We ask only those people who really need to attend our Emergency Department to come as emergencies, dialling 999 or attending in person.
"Those people who need urgent care are asked to call NHS 111 so they can be directed to the right service for them.”"
