Visiting guidelines in St Patrick's

At St Patrick’s Mental Health Services (SPMHS), we have visiting opportunities in place for our service users and their supporters.

Before coming to our campuses, we ask that you check our latest visiting information here. 

Please note that the guidelines below are now out of date; please follow the link above to see current visiting opportunities.

Check our current visiting measures

We are currently following public health guidance for visiting to acute hospitals. We make our visiting guidelines with everyone’s health in mind, and always work to keep the people attending and running our services as safe as possible. We would like to reassure you that we regularly review these measures, and we are very grateful to our service users and their supporters for their cooperation and understanding.

Who can currently enter our campuses?

Service users with a clinical need to be onsite, as advised by their clinician or multidisciplinary team (MDT), can come to our campuses.

Visiting is open to our St Patrick’s University Hospital (SPUH) campus only. All visitors must follow the measures outlined below.

Staff members across our services may also be onsite. To reduce the number of people onsite, we are enabling and encouraging staff to work remotely where appropriate.

What visiting restrictions do we have in place?

Inpatient service users in SPUH can welcome up to two visitors at a time. Service users can make arrangements with their visitors to come to the hospital.

Visiting should not take place at service user’s mealtimes or when they are due to attend programmes or therapies.

Tables and seating are widely available on the ground floor of the hospital and in the garden for service users and visitors to meet and spend time together. Visitors will not be able to meet service users on their wards.

For health and safety, no food or drink can be consumed during a visit.

Please note that visiting for Willow Grove Adolescent Unit is organised separately; the Willow Grove team will liaise with service users and their families to make arrangements.

What to do when you arrive for a visit

If you are visiting a service user, you should check in at the main reception of SPUH when you arrive.

Our reception staff will ask you to complete a standard COVID-19 screening survey and agree to follow our infection control measures, which you can see further below. Once this screening is passed, the visit can go ahead.

Reception staff will also give you a mask to wear throughout your time in SPUH. You will be given a guidance document outlining the measures we ask you to follow during your visit.

You should check out at reception when you are leaving the hospital after your visit.

Are children allowed to visit?

Yes, children and young people aged 16 or under are allowed to visit. They can be named as one of the people visiting a service user.

Children and young people will need to follow the visiting processes outlined above.

What infection control measures will I need to follow?

If you are coming to one of our campuses, please identify yourself at the reception desk when you arrive. Our reception staff will ask you to complete a questionnaire with the queries below:

• Have you tested positive for COVID-19 in the past 10 days?
• Have you been advised that you are required to self-isolate?
• Have you been experiencing any of the symptoms below in the last two days? 
  • Fever or chills
  • Cough
  • Fatigue or tiredness
  • Loss or change in smell or taste
  • Nasal congestion
  • Eye infection or conjunctivitis
  • Sore throat
  • Headache
  • Muscle or joint pain
  • Nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea

If you answer “yes” to any of the questions, we cannot allow entry to the campus. If you pass this screening protocol, you will be asked to sign a document agreeing to:

• perform hand hygiene
• wear a face mask
• practice cough and sneeze etiquette
• maintain physical distancing of two metres.

Please follow the guidelines below when you are on campus.

• Wash your hands thoroughly before you arrive
• Use our hand hygiene gels at the entrance and throughout the campus
• Observe hand hygiene and coughing and sneezing etiquette closely, as promoted by the HSE, throughout your time on the campus
  • cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing
  • dispose your used tissues in a bin
  • wash your hands thoroughly after coughing or sneezing
  • wash your hands thoroughly before leaving the hospital.
• Follow physical distancing measures throughout your time on the campus by keeping a distance of two metres from other people and avoiding physical contact.