Visiting restrictions still in place at East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust hospitals

Visiting restrictions remain in place at all hospitals run by East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), including in Ipswich and Felixstowe.

A spokesperson for ESNEFT said the rate of coronavirus infection at their hospitals remains high and ward visiting is still closed.

They added the trust's visiting policy was under 'regular review'.

Nick Hulme, chief executive for ESNEFT, said: “Quite rightly, people are asking me why we still have visiting restrictions in place when other hospitals do not.

“But the truth is the situation from one trust to another, even if they are in the same county, is never the same.

"Community infection rates have come down in other areas quicker than they have in north Essex and east Suffolk, and therefore inpatient numbers in those areas have come down too.

“Due to the number of Covid-19 cases and contacts in our hospitals, as well as community prevalence of the virus, most of our visiting restrictions must remain in place for now.

“Our priority, as always, is to keep everyone in our hospitals as safe as possible, but we are committed to reinstating more open ward visiting as soon as we can."

Giles Thorpe, chief nurse and director of Infection Prevention and Control at ESNEFT, said: "We do appreciate and understand how difficult it is for our patients and the people who care about them, but we cannot ignore the number of patients we have with the virus and how infectious this latest variant is.

“We did manage to open some visiting for patients who have been in hospital for more than seven days before the Easter weekend and we are moving towards more open general visiting – but we’re not there yet.”