I wouldn’t personally be going to any pressure groups, despite our awful experience. I don’t disagree with the no visiting policies, I’m afraid. There is no way I’d have let my 70yo asthmatic MIL visit FIL on his ITU despite everything, despite him being on the non-Covid green side, until it was clear he was going. I wasn’t going to have DH risk losing both parents. I was top of the list of people they weren’t letting in as NHS frontline staff in a different hospital, despite my early vaccination, despite my constant PCR/lateral flow testing and they were right.
I work on acute inpatient wards. The third wave was just awful - we lost so many patients and virtually all of the remaining staff that hadn’t had it already got it, some got it a second time. It’s to protect staff as well as patients and visitors. Even if you’ve had jabs, even if the patient has had Covid, their nurse/HCA/therapist might not have. I’ve escaped it (so far, touch wood, by some miracle) and I’m clinically vulnerable, bordering on CEV, yet I’m still in the face of it every day. I don’t need any more exposure than I already get. The more traffic we have through hospitals, the more it spreads. I think the current roadmap is right, given the current infection rates.
Have you asked for outside visiting? Our more mobile patients arrange to meet family members out the front of the hospital (a lot of the time without our knowledge, TBH). The less mobile ones, we’ve pushed outside in a chair so they can see a family member, now that the weather’s improving. No touching or hugging, but it’s better than FaceTime.