Rejected petition Allow dogs to visit consenting long staying patients in hospitals.

Research in America and Italy has demonstrated the uplifting effects experienced by both patients and staff when dogs are allowed to wander around hospital corridors and wards.

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Dogs probably will not directly help a human to recover from illness, but dogs make humans happy. And feeling happy does make humans more likely to recover from illness.
The petitioner has been unable to find evidence of any diseases which are carried by dogs being transmitted to humans

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.

Rules on visiting patients are a clinical and operational matter for individual hospitals and the NHS, not the UK Government or Parliament.

It is already the case that therapy dogs are allowed in hospitals under certain circumstances.

You could start a petition calling for the Government to fund a programme of therapy dogs for use in hospitals in England, if that is something you'd like to see happen.

You might also like to sign this petition which calls for a related action: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/563612

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 5 June 2021
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