Inpatients

Whether you are a patient on one of our hospital wards or a relative or carer of someone on our wards, we are taking steps to keep you safe in our hospitals.

In order to keep the risk of COVID-19 infection to a minimum we request the following:

  • If you are a patient please do not leave your ward area unless you absolutely need to or are asked to by a member of staff.
  • Please do not meet friends or family inside or outside of the building.
  • Please be mindful that we are doing our very best to look after everyone in our care, but the numbers of staff available may be less than you would usually expect.
  • Please arrange for one family member or friend to be a single point of contact for updates, to avoid multiple calls to the ward. You can contact the Relatives Telephone Information Line on 01274 272747 from 9:30am to 5:30pm.

See the latest guidance on visiting or just ask a member of the nursing team.

If you have any concerns about visiting or anything else please speak to the nurse in charge. If you are not satisfied please ask to speak to a matron, we want to know how we can make this difficult time easier for all.

You can listen to a transcript of our hospital admission letter in Urdu, Polish, and Czech-Slovak. To listen to these audio files click on the relevant link below:

  • Urdu – being admitted to hospital letter
  • Polish – being admitted to hospital letter
  • Czech-Slovak – being admitted to hospital letter
BRI-Information-Centre2

We know that coming to hospital can be a worrying time. At Bradford Teaching Hospitals we aim to first diagnose the problem, and then give you the best possible treatment.

To help you prepare for your stay as an inpatient, we have put together the following information in three sections. The pages here also contain directions on how to manage your appointment, car parking, what to bring with you and where to go.

You can also find information on our visiting hours, which vary ward by ward.

If you feel there is information missing from these pages, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us by email at websitefeedback@bthft.nhs.uk

Information while you are waiting for surgery or treatment
Bradford Teaching Hospitals is here for you and we are doing our best to get you the care you need as soon as possible. While you are waiting for a hospital appointment, we wanted to let you know that there is more support available to you. Each of our specialities communicate with patients on their waiting lists, but you can also now access the NHS My Planned Care patient website – a national website which gives you access to the latest average wait time information, as well as helpful advice and support while you wait. www.nhs.uk also has health advice and support around managing your condition.

If you have any further questions, please contact our Patient Experience team at: patient.experience@bthft.nhs.uk or call: 01274 364810, Monday to Friday, 9am to 4pm.

Looking after yourself
While you are waiting for an appointment, it’s important that you continue to look after yourself. Maintaining a healthy lifestyle includes eating well, keeping physically active, reducing your alcohol intake and not smoking. Keeping active could include just doing 10 minutes of walking every day or you can do chair based exercises. There are a number of online resources and information about local services available to support your physical and mental wellbeing at www.mylivingwell.co.uk.  If you do not have access to the internet but would like to know about what you can do to maintain a healthy lifestyle whilst you wait for your procedure, please contact the Living Well Team on 01274 438884. If you are waiting for surgery we have more advice available on our Shape Up For Surgery pages.

Looking after your mental health and emotional wellbeing
Looking after your mind is as important as looking after your body. It’s important that you get support if you’re feeling stressed, anxious, depressed or lonely. Sometimes it could be a case of just reaching out to someone you know and having a chat. We know that this doesn’t always work for everyone, so if you do feel like you need help remember there are services here to help you. If you need support please visit the Healthy Minds website, this includes links to services that help children and young people as well as support for adults

If you need urgent mental health support call First Response on 0800 952 1181

If you need urgent or emergency care
We want to reassure you that we are still here for you when you need urgent or emergency care. You must continue to seek medical care if you are seriously ill or injured. We will see you in a safe, low risk environment. If it not an emergency please help us help you by calling NHS 111 (available 24 hours a day) or use NHS 111 online www.111.nhs.uk. You will be guided to the right service that can help you when you need to be seen quickly but is not an emergency.

Changing your admission date
If you need to change your admission date, please contact us as soon as possible and we will try to arrange a date that is convenient for you. Your admission letter should give a contact for number for your enquiries. If you are still unsure which number to call, please call the switchboard on 01274 542200 and they will put you through to the correct ward.

Tips for hospital admission – advice to Muslim communities
The Muslim Council of Britain has shared some practical tips to support Muslim communities if a family member is admitted to hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Visitors and parking
Visitors should use the pay-and-display areas provided at each hospital site. Please bring loose change for the ticket machine. If you are a blue badge holder, you may park for free in the disabled or pay-and-display areas if your badge is clearly displayed. Concessionary car parking permits are available if you are an inpatient for more than seven days or you regularly attend the hospital. Your nearest relative or friend can apply for this concession after visiting the hospital for more than seven days. Patients whose treatment requires them to make repeated attendance at a clinic or ward also qualify for a concession. Please ask staff for details.

For more information, see the During your stay page.

Admission

If you need help to find the admissions area or your ward when you arrive, please ask for help at the enquiry desk in the main reception. Our enquiry desks are open:

  • Bradford Royal Infirmary: 24 hours a day, seven days a week
  • St Luke’s Hospital: 7.30am – 4pm daily.

We understand that being in hospital may be a new and strange experience for you. Our Patients’ and Carers’ Guide is designed to help you prepare for your stay.

If you have any questions that remain unanswered about any aspects of your stay or treatment, then the nurse in charge or a doctor or nurse involved in your care will be happy to help.

Discharge plan

To ensure your stay in hospital is no longer than necessary, plans for your discharge are made as early as possible. You should be given a provisional discharge date within 24 hours of admission.

Your discharge plan
Your nurse will be responsible for arranging your discharge plan. If you have any questions about your discharge plan please see your nurse or ward sister.

Your leaving hospital checklist
When you are ready to be discharged your nurse should make sure you have:

• A copy of the GP letter
• All the medications you need with information on usage and storage
• Information on details of care needed from other health professionals
• Information about potential lifestyle changes with appropriate advice
• Contact numbers if you have any further questions or concerns.

You may also need to:

• Give administration staff a forwarding address
• Collect any money or valuables you have handed in
• Return any hospital equipment you no longer need.

Patient Initiated Follow-up (PIFU)
You may be placed on a Patient Initiated Follow-Up plan. Patient initiated follow up (PIFU) puts you in control. It allows you to decide whether you wish to see the doctor. Instead of having a follow up appointment booked, your follow up care will be initiated by you.  You can contact the team for an appointment within a specified timeframe e.g. 6 months, when you feel you need it. Please see our Patient Initiated Follow-Up page for more information.

Open and honest care
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of a number of NHS organisations who want to be open and honest with patients. This is how a modern NHS trust should be – open and accountable to the public and patients and always driving forward improvements in care.

We want to make sure that you can access information about the quality of care that we provide. Being open, honest and answerable to the public and our patients will help us make improvements to our care services. The NHS Open and Honest Care programme helps us to do this by providing you with a wide range of information about our services.

As a member of the Open and Honest Care: Driving Improvement programme, we continue to work with patients and staff to provide open and honest care, and through implementing quality improvements, further reduce the harm that patients very occasionally experience when they are in our care.

We have made a commitment to publish patient outcomes, as well as patient experience and staff experience measures so that patients and the public can see how we are performing.

Each month we work with other care providers to share what we have learned and to use this information to identify where changes can be made to improve care.

John's Campaign

John’s Campaign campaigns for extended visiting rights for the family carers of patients with dementia in hospitals throughout the UK, and was founded on 30 November, 2014 by the writers Nicci Gerrard and Julia Jones.

In February 2014 Dr John Gerrard, aged 86, spent five weeks in hospital. He had Alzheimer’s Disease and his family’s visiting time was severely restricted because of a combination of normal visiting hours and an infectious outbreak. His condition deteriorated dramatically while he was in hospital; having previously been living well with Alzheimer’s he became ‘skeletal, incontinent, immobile, and incoherent’ and needed 24-hour care. He died in November 2014.

His family believe that the lack of contact with familiar people and of the individual attention they would have given him contributed significantly to his deterioration. In November 2014, after her father’s death, Nicci Gerrard wrote a well-received newspaper article on the subject. An edition of the newspaper printed a week later subsequently featured several supportive letters and the campaign developed thereafter.

In March 2016 it was announced that the campaign had been endorsed by the NHS.

Support for carers
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTHFT) recognises that carers have a unique understanding of the needs of a person in their care. All decisions we take about care from diagnosis to the end of life will be guided by what our patients want, working together with their families and carers.

What does this mean for carers?

Visiting
Following assessment and where deemed appropriate, BTHFT offers open access visiting to support carers who wish to stay with the person they care for. This includes the option of staying overnight. Facilities to support this will vary across the organisation, however we will make attempts for this to happen in all areas.

Wards 29 and 31 have a shared facility for carers who wish to stay overnight. It offers a quiet space for carers away from the ward with refreshment facilities.

Please note: Visitors to Bradford Teaching Hospitals under exceptional circumstances and people attending outpatients’ appointments MUST still wear a face mask at all times to protect themselves and others from coronavirus. Although the rules have been relaxed outside our hospitals, BTHFT staff are still wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines to protect patients, visitors and each other. Please follow their lead. It is important masks and face coverings are worn safely. For more information, please watch this short video.

Anyone showing any symptoms of coronavirus should not visit. If you are in a high risk category i.e. you have an underlying health condition that puts you at risk of COVID-19, you should also not visit. Find out more information on our current visiting policy.

Involvement in care decisions and planning
Carers provide vital supporting to our patients who have a dementia, and we recognise the expertise and value they bring to patients’ care and treatment. We will strive to address both the needs of the patient and carer during the time a patient with dementia is in our care.

Carers will be encouraged to discuss any problems or concerns they identify with the ward team.

Carer stress

  • Carers will be provided with information and advice so that they can make informed choices about how they can access support
  • Staff are trained to listen, advise and provide sensitive, informal emotional support
  • Staff can refer carers to community support services for information and advice on being a carer, including any entitled benefits.
  • Staff will support carers who wish to take respite following an admission of the person they care for.

Discharge

  • Carers will be given the opportunity to discuss and be involved in decisions made around discharge
  • Working closely with community services we will, where possible, ensure that all needs of the patients and carers are met prior to discharge

How will I ensure this will happen?

  • Carers are encouraged to discuss their needs and expectations on admission and at regular intervals when appropriate
  • BTHFT has a shared care record where details of carer discussions and plans of care can be recorded
  • Carers will be provided with a carer’s passport on identification. It gives carers agreed access to the ward, which can be shown to staff if needed.

Further Information

  • At BTHFT we have a separate Dementia Strategy which can provide you with more detailed information on our promise to improve care and experience for people living with a dementia
  • John’s Campaign also has an external website.