NORMAL visiting times have been reinstated across most of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire following an outbreak of the winter vomiting bug.

Visiting had been limited to just one hour a day on all wards, after an outbreak of norovirus last week.

But the temporary restriction now only remains in force on wards nine and 79.

Helen Jenkinson, deputy director of infection control, said: "I thank visitors who co-operated and only came to see their relatives and friends during the single visiting hour over the past few days.

"This helps us enormously in dealing with this bug, which is more contagious than the common cold.

"We have been able to control the spread of the outbreak very quickly and return to normal visiting everywhere, except the final two wards that are still affected.

"The norovirus season goes on through the winter, so we may have to re-introduce the temporary visiting restriction again, but we will always lift it as soon as we possibly can, because we know how important visiting is to our patients and their family and friends."