Visiting all hours: a focus group study on staff's views of open visiting in a hospice.

St Columba's Hospice, Edinburgh, is a busy specialist palliative care unit with 30 inpatient beds. A previous publication reported the first strand of a qualitative exploratory study evaluating the impact of open visiting on patients at the hospice. This paper reports on the second strand, which sought to elicit the views of the hospice staff through focus group interviews. The main themes identified were valuing the family and friends as visitors, involving the family as part of the care team, patient powerlessness over visiting, shared rooms and their impact on visitors and patients, and the staff role as advocates or gatekeepers. Several strategies for developing a flexible and 'patient-controlled' visiting policy were identified, including quiet times without visitors, restriction of visitor numbers in shared rooms, and encouraging breaks from visiting. Since the study was completed, the hospice's visiting policy has been modified to ensure that it is patient-centred and meets the needs of patients and families.