HOSPITAL bosses have decided to keep visiting restrictions in place for fear of the norovirus spreading again.

The Princess Royal University Hospital in Farnborough has been struggling to control an outbreak of the winter vomiting bug since the middle of last month.

At one point, inpatient admissions, planned surgery, accident and emergency services and the Urgent Care Centre were all affected.

Although the situation has eased, there are still visiting restrictions in place.

The South London Healthcare NHS Trust has warned today (March 2) that other hospitals may have relaxed controls to quickly after similar outbreaks.

A spokesman for the trust said: “The situation at the Princess Royal University Hospital site is improving significantly, however we have decided to keep the visitor restrictions in place today.

“We are aware that other hospitals which have experienced similar outbreaks recently have needed to re impose tight restrictions following relaxations, so we need to ensure this doesn’t happen here.”

Relatives of children, birthing partners of women in labour and relatives of critically ill patients are still allowed to visit the wards.

Outpatients clinics are running as normal.

The trust spokesman continued: "We would like to thank the public for their continued co-operation in what has been a difficult time during the norovirus outbreak.

"We appreciate that restricting visitors has been difficult for our patients and we hope that the public understands the restrictions really have been necessary to ensure the safety of the greatest number of patients."