VISITING HOSPITAL

All hospital visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask. Expand this message for information about visiting hospital.

Last updated:
13 March 2023

Some visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury hospitals and health facilities remain in place, but we have relaxed others.

There is still a heightened risk to vulnerable people in hospital and so we recommend all people wear a mask when visiting any of our facilities and follow other advice designed to keep patients, staff and  visitors safe.

Kia whakahaumaru te whānau, me ngā iwi katoa – this is to keep everybody safe:

  • Visitors or support people must not visit our facilities if they are unwell. Do not visit if you have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and haven’t completed your isolation period.
  • Patients may have more than one visitor, except in some situations such as multi-bed rooms where it can cause overcrowding.
  • Surgical/medical masks are recommended be worn at all sites. Masks will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • For Specialist Mental Health Services everyone is strongly encouraged to wear a face mask in all inpatient areas and areas where consumers are receiving care (i.e. community appointments, home-visits, transporting people). Discretion may be applied in cases where masks impair your ability to communicate effectively.
  • Visitors must not eat or drink in multibed rooms because of the increased risk when multiple people remove their face mask in the same space.
  • Hand sanitiser is available and must be used.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as our staff work hard to protect and care for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Visiting patients with COVID-19

  • People can visit patients who have COVID-19 but they must wear an N95 mask – this will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • Other methods of communication will be facilitated e.g. phone, Facetime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc where visits aren’t possible.

All of our Hospitals

Visiting hours for our hospitals have returned to pre COVID-19 hours with the exception of Christchurch Women’s Hospital.

All visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask.

Parents/caregivers are able to be with their child in hospital and visitors are now allowed, except for the Children’s Haematology and Oncology Day stay where just one parent/caregiver is able to attend their appointment with their child. Exceptions by special arrangement only.

Patients and visitors should also read the additional more detailed visiting guidelines for each specific hospital.

More COVID-19 information

Awards and recognition

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The Canterbury Health System and its staff are internationally renowned for their whole-of-system approach – where everyone in the health system works together to do the right thing for the patient and the right thing for the system

International awards & recognition

The King's Fund

The Canterbury Health System has been internationally recognised by The King's Fund – a highly-regarded British health authority, as one of the high-performing health systems in the world.

The King's Fund international report encourages other health systems to learn from Canterbury DHB: ​​”The Canterbury Health System model of integrated services and collaboration is being used extensively overseas (particularly NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, NHS Ireland as well as a number of states in Australia).​​” David Meates, former Chief Executive, Canterbury DHB.

Read more about The King's Fund report

​​​National awards & recognition

Institute of Public Administration New Zealand (​IPANZ)

The Institute of Public Administration host the annual Public Sector Excellence Awards to recognise outstanding performance and achievement within the New Zealand Public Sector.

Canterbury DHB won four award categories at the IPANZ awards in 2015:

  1. The Prime Minister's award for Public Sector Excellence​; this award was open to all category winners and was won by the Canterbury Health System's Canterbury Clinical Network.
  2. The Treasury Award for Excellence in Improving Public Value through Business Transformation​; the Canterbury Clinical Network which has led the transformation of health services through their patient-centric, clinically-led alliance approach.
  3. The State Services Commission and Leadership Development Centre Award for Improving Performance through Leadership Excellence​; the Canterbury Health System's ‘8' programmes, Xcelr8, Collabor8 and Particip8 which develops leaders across the Canterbury Health System was a joint winner with the Department of Internal Affairs.
  4. The Victoria University of Wellington School of Government Award for Excellence in Public Sector Engagement​. The ‘Heading to hospital – Plan your trip!' campaign to inform Cantabrians about the closure of onsite parking at Christchurch Hospital, and the establishment of a new Park & Ride scheme.

Find out more by reading the IPANZ Awards Media Release

Gold award for Canterbury in energy management 

Energy Mark GoldTe Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury is the proud holder of an Energy-Mark Gold Award for energy management – only the second organisation in New Zealand to do so.
Described as the “ultimate step in the energy management journey” in New Zealand, a Gold Award is a very significant achievement for the DHB, especially for our Maintenance and Engineering team who have worked very hard behind the scenes to make sure that our energy systems are as good as they can possibly be.

We have already earned our Bronze and Silver awards from Enviro-Mark Solutions, the leading provider of environmental certification in New Zealand. A Gold award means that we are now running our energy systems to ISO50001, the international gold standard for energy management. Certification as an Energy-Mark Gold organisation is complicated, but the DHB achieved it “without findings” – in other words, without any corrective measures being required.

“This is a major achievement for the Canterbury DHB,” says Dr Belinda Mathers, General Manager Technical from Enviro-Mark Solutions. “With a bespoke approach to energy management now in place across all sites, the DHB can be proud of achieving international best-practice in energy use, performance and efficiency. We look forward to seeing the effects of future developments such as the proposed wood-waste boilers at the Christchurch Hospital campus on your energy use and management.

Energy-Mark Gold certified organisations have robust processes for making the information within the energy management system accessible and keeping it up to date. The organisation regularly performs internal audits of the management system and top management reviews the strategy of the energy management system

Since 2001, Enviro-Mark Solutions’ environmental certification schemes have ensured that New Zealand companies and organisations benefit from international best practice, applied science, and effective tools. Enviro-Mark Solutions is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Landcare Research, a Government-owned Crown Research Institute.

The Guardian newspaper – UK

Everyone working in the Canterbury Health System should be very proud, as our collective achievements were highlighted in the form of an article published in The Guardian newspaper in the UK on Tuesday 3 July.

The article, ‘Five ideas from other health systems that could transform the NHS’ highlights Canterbury’s integrated health system and talks about our collaborative approach to health and social services care, and our ongoing journey of transformation.

Article: Five ideas from other health systems that could transform NHS

Page last updated: 3 March 2023

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