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Extreme weather cancels routine appointments
Written by Communications Team   

All outpatient appointments at both Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals are cancelled today because of the extreme weather conditions, and a decision will be made later today regarding appointments tomorrow. Only a small number of planned operations are taking place today, and the Trust is contacting individual patients by telephone to let them know. The overall message from the Trust is, please don’t ring our switchboard unless absolutely necessary, but wait for us to call you.
 
Said Director of Operations at the Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Trust, Jeremy Tozer: “We are concentrating on providing emergency services while these extreme weather conditions prevail. Our staff have made valiant efforts to get to work but nevertheless routine work has to be stopped while we deal with the emergencies and care for patients on the wards.
 
“All our outpatient appointments at both hospitals are cancelled today (Monday). Planned (elective) operations are having to be postponed in every surgical discipline, and we are doing our best to telephone each individual patient to let them know.   We would ask patients to wait until we call them, rather than trying to call us as our switchboard has been experiencing huge volumes of calls. In these very difficult circumstances, we must emphasise that it will not always be possible to make ‘phone contact, and we hope patients affected will understand.”
 
The Trust is hoping that throughout the day staff from all departments will continue to try to get to work, safety permitting.
 
Said Jeremy: “We are very grateful to those staff who have either stayed on following the end of their shift and to those who have managed to get to work and those who continue to travel in. Our final message - please don’t ring our switchboard unless it is vital and please stay away unless it is absolutely necessary.”
 
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 February 2009 17:14 )