Coronavirus: Care minister tells councils to limit care home visits

The care minister has written to councils to tell them to protect care home residents by limiting family visits.

Care minister Helen Whately stated in a letter to council leaders "now is the time to act" to keep care home residents safe, adding that although ministers understand that visits are “important for the wellbeing of residents and loved ones”, great care needed to be taken.

Her letter comes alongside the government’s newly-published COVID-19 winter plan for adult social care. The winter plan stipulates that care home visitors must be supervised at all times during their visit and visits must be limited.

Councils have been told they can conduct regular assessments on whether visiting is safe in a specific area and all visits must be stopped in places identified as an "area of intervention" i.e. where local lockdown rules are in force.

Today's guidance lets care homes make 'operational decision'

While the care minister has urged council leaders to act to protect care home residents, the government has published its latest visitor guidance today (21 September), which states the decision on whether to allow visitors is one the care home provider should make.

Today's guidance states: 'Prior to visits being allowed in care homes, the director of public health in every area should disseminate their view on the suitability of visiting in the local authority area, taking into account infection rates and the wider risk environment.

'The decision on whether or not to allow visitors, and in what circumstances, is an operational decision and therefore ultimately for the provider and managers of each individual setting to make.

'The care home’s visiting policy should be made available and/or communicated to residents and families, together with any necessary variations to arrangements due to external events'.

The guidance refers care homes to the Care Provider Alliance (CPA) which has published a 'sector-led protocol for enabling visiting based on this model'.

The government guidance goes on to state: 'where risk is considered to be heightened, the provider may adopt a general policy for all of its residents, that visits will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances. In such cases, alternative means of maintaining contact between residents and their loved ones should be clearly set out.'

The CPA protocol highlights what care homes can do in relation to window visits, garden visits, drive-thru visits, designated visit areas inside the care home building and in-room visits for end-of-life scenarios.

In Wales, Bridgend council said it and other authorities had suspended visits to care homes. In a statement, Bridgend Council said: 'The changes will mean that until further notice, friends and family members will no longer be able to see their loved ones in either outdoor visits or indoor visits'.

At the height of the pandemic, over 400 care home residents were dying from COVID-19 every day and all care homes shut their doors to non-essential visitors to protect residents from the disease.

Care homes in England were allowed to reopen again for family visits in July - as long as public health teams said it was safe. With infections now on the rise again in the UK and the government announcing stricter lockdown restrictions across England, many care homes have now shut their doors again to visitors.

The government's COVID-19 social care winter plan hands care homes an extra £546m Infection Control Fund and free PPE until March 2021.

To read the government's latest guidance on visitors click here