Care minister having 'sleepless nights' says care home visitor testing will begin within days

Care minister Helen Whately has said a COVID-19 testing pilot for the families and friends of care home residents will begin on Monday, 16 November in 30 care homes, and she will “roll this out widely across the country in December” after “sleepless nights” over care home visits.

Thirty care homes located in four local authority areas with a “low prevalence” of COVID-19, have been selected for the testing trial, the care minister told MPs in Westminster on 11 November.

Helen Whately said some family members would be able to visit residents if they tested negative first in the trial.

The testing pilot will involve both PCR tests and quick turnaround lateral flow tests “to see which is the best one for enabling testing”.

The government announced yesterday that findings from PHE Porton Down and Oxford University shows lateral flow tests are accurate enough to be used for asymptomatic people.

She said “different sorts of care homes” will be in the pilot to assess “the practicalities of testing and also make sure that we’re confident in the safety of this”.

‘Sleepless nights for me’

The minister made the announcement during a Westminster Hall debate, after listening to MPs reading out the words of families who had been prevented from visiting loved ones in care homes during the pandemic.

Care minister Helen Whateley said: “I feel so strongly as care minister that visiting is incredibly important for those living in care homes. What I’m doing, what the government’s doing, is the overall aim is to keep those who receive care in care homes safe and well.

“It’s an incredibly hard balance to strike. When COVID has got into care homes and when there have been outbreaks, it’s been so hard for care homes to control that and tragically we have seen so many deaths of those living in care homes.

“It is a reason for sleepless nights for me and others who are trying to make the right decisions here.

“I am not naïve at all about the fact that having a screen is not the answer to the problem of visiting. It certainly doesn’t work for everybody.

“I absolutely hear it. I want people to be able to hold hands again” but she added loosening visiting restrictions now had been “strongly against the clinical advice I have received”.

“I’ve been advised that every single additional person going into a care home takes with them the risk that they will take COVID into that setting”.

Shadow care minister Liz Kendall said a pilot was not fast enough. The Labour MP for Leicester West told the minister earlier in the debate: “There simply isn’t enough time for many of those living in care homes to wait and watch for a pilot scheme or another set of guidelines, we need action now."

MPs used the debate on family visits to tell the stories of families who could not meet their parents and children living in care homes.

Joy Morrissey, Conservative MP for Beaconsfield led the debate and highlighted the case of a 21-year-old man with complex disabilities called Jamie who would call out “I want my mum” but “wasted away” and died after being isolated and denied visits from his mother for months. The care minister said she was looking into the case.

The MP for Beaconsfield asked the minister: “Perhaps the minister could provide clarity as to whether families are now permitted to remove their loved ones from residential care home settings and what the protocol will be for that moving forward?”, but the minister did not offer an answer to this question.

‘Our moment’ for social care reform in order to ‘hold our heads up high’

Daisy Cooper, Liberal Democrat MP for St Albans said: “The cruel 30 min time limit on visits must be scrapped and care homes must have the protection from legal action if COVID is introduced to a home by a designated visitor” which she called the “very same protections that have been agreed for the NHS”.

Helen Whately replied: “Our guidance advises that you should book a visit with a care home but doesn’t stipulate a 30-minute time limit”.

Helen Whately told MPs: “I truly believe this is the moment in time that we have to step forward and be on the front foot and really achieve the social care reform that the sector, that everyone has been crying out for, for so long.

“It’s an ‘if not now, when moment’. This will be our moment that we seize this moment, to not just support social care through this pandemic but to bring about a system of social care which all of us can hold our heads up high about.”