Always keep your nose and mouth covered in our hospitals
Wearing a face masks or covering is mandatory for all visitors and staff.
Face masks are available at all entrances of Barts Health hospitals. If visitors are unable to access these please ask a member of staff. Barts Health are currently working on ways to make these masks more accessible and will share an update on this once available.
Staff and patients should continue to avoid face to face meetings where possible, and if this is unavoidable please continue to wear a face mask at all times unless you are working or meeting in a Covid-secure environment, which team leads will confirm once a risk assessment is carried out on that particular area.
It has been recently reported that a local London hospital had to shut their A&E department and quarantine 70 staff, after a training session was held where staff did not adhere to the social distancing guidance and did not wear face masks for the duration of the session. Barts Health would like to learn from this and take steps to ensure similar events do not occur at any of our hospitals.
It is important to understand that wearing a face mask is not only to protect yourself, but also your colleagues, their families, and patients.
Barts Helath staff are champions of this new normal and are leading by example, through featuring in the new trust wide face a mask poster campaign.
We are all in this together, so let’s look after each other and continue wearing face masks in Barts Health hospitals and premises.
Still not convinced?
If you are still not convinced on the importance of face masks, several studies continue to prove how important they are including:
A study published in JAMA Network showed that the rate at which staff were infected with Covid-19 dramatically decreased following the introduction of infection control measures including the mandatory use of masks for both staff and patients.
- Before masks and systematic testing were introduced (March 1-24, 2020), the Covid-19 positivity rate increased exponentially from 0% to 21.32%, with a case doubling time of 3.6 days. Once the infection prevention methods were introduced (April 11-30, 2020), the positivity rate decreased from 14.65% at the start of the reporting period to 11.46% at the end.
Related resources:
Wear a mask poster - featuring Barts Health staff [pdf]
How to wear a medical mask video
