National lockdown must not include locking out care home visitors
The Housing LIN has joined a coalition of over 60 organisations, brought together by the National Care Forum, in signing an open letter to Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and Helen Whately, Minister for Care, calling on the government to ensure that care homes are supported to enable visits by families and loved ones, now and in the future. The letter calls on the government to adopt this position in any new regulations it is drafting for the care sector to cover the national lockdown and the aftermath. In particular, to enable visiting it recommends:
- Government to fully support testing of visitors to help the management of the virus
- Enable designation of one person, as a minimum, per resident as a ‘key visitor’ who is eligible for regular testing, PPE and training alongside the care home staff, so they can visit frequently and for longer
- Enable every care home to manage visiting in the individual way that works best for them, their environment, residents and their workforce and empower providers to work this out by talking with all their residents, their loved ones and staff
- Support all care homes to create safe COVID-19 visiting spaces to use to facilitate safe visits
- Work together across the entire health and care sector to support care home visiting, including CQC, local authorities and DPHs, and health and care staff too, and
- Government to provide indemnification or unblock restrictive insurance policies creating barriers to visiting
Read the letter and accompanying press release by clicking on the links below.