Your visit to the hospital

We've developed this section to help you find out everything you need to know about our hospitals when you need to use our services either as a patient or as a visitor. We want to provide you with this information to make your visit easier, for example by being able to decide what you need to bring with you and to help make you aware of the facilities we have available. This guide should help you if you are an inpatient, outpatient or visitor.

We aim to deliver consistently high standards of care in everything that we do and we are always pleased to hear of anything you have to say and any suggestions you might have to help us continuously improve our services.

If you struggle to get to hospital or medical appointments did you know there is help?  CLICK HERE to find out.

You can help us to improve our services and let us know what you think by providing us with feedback.

You can also comment about your experience on the NHS website.

You can find out more about your rights and responsibilities in the NHS Constitution.

Hospital Visiting Times

Visiting across our hospitals has returned to pre-covid arrangements. Generally, there are no restrictions in place and most wards have set times to support you to visit loved ones.

However, should a ward be managing a Covid-19 outbreak there may be restrictions in place.

Therefore, please contact the ward or department to confirm arrangements.

However, we know that there may be circumstances where visiting outside of these hours is required and this should be discussed on an indiviudal basis with the appropriate ward or department.

There are also some clinical areas which are exceptions to this policy such as our maternity wards, critical care, neonatal and paediatric wards, please ask these wards directly about their visiting times via the main switchboards at Darlington Memorial Hospital 01325 380 100 or University Hospital of North Durham 0191 333 2333.

When visiting family or friends we politely ask you to follow these simple rules:

• Clean your hands before entering and when leaving wards or treatment areas: hand disinfectant is available at the entrance to all wards and department areas.
• To help stop the spread of infection, do not visit if you are unwell or if you have a tummy upset.
• Wait until you have been symptom free for 72 hours before visiting.
• Only two visitors per patient and no sitting on beds.
• Only visit for short periods (maximum of 1 hour) and allow patients to rest before next visitors arrive. Information about visiting times is available at each ward entrance.
• Please only use mobile phones in permitted areas, do not use cameras within mobile phones.
  Smoking is not permitted within Trust grounds. (Visit the website for information on getting help to stop smoking)
• The visiting of patients by children under the age of 12 years is discouraged, unless the patient is parent, brother or sister.
• Please do not run anywhere in the hospital (children should be supervised at all times).
• Please note we operate a zero tolerance on violence and aggression towards staff, other visitors and patients.
• Gifts and flowers - check with ward staff first.
• Treat everyone, patients, staff and visitors with dignity and respect at all times.
• Remember everyone has the right to privacy.

To read our full Visitor Policy - CLICK HERE