Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the guidance for visiting patients in (a) hospitals and (b) hospices in the context of the covid-19 outbreak.

Visiting guidance for inpatient settings, including hospitals and hospices is regularly reviewed.

Most recently, visitor lateral flow testing has been added to the guidance to facilitate safer visiting across a number of hospital settings following assessment of levels of community prevalence of COVID-19.

Most hospices are independent, charitable organisations, with visiting policies at the discretion of the hospice manager.