Letter for care home residents' family and friends on visiting and testing

1 April 2022

 We now have the details of what life will be like for our care homes in regards to visiting and testing from Monday 4 April. This is outlined below under each of the nations as the guidance differs for England, Scotland and Wales. 

I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you for bearing with us over the many changes in guidance in visiting and testing over the past two years. I know it has not been easy at times for many of you, especially as we balanced the need for you to be able to see your loved one along with the need to keep them as safe as possible. 

Unfortunately, with the ongoing prevalence of Covid-19, there will continue to be times when we will still need to restrict visiting due to outbreaks in our homes and local public health guidance. As I write, sadly we have a number of our homes restricted because of current outbreaks. 

As we move towards a situation of more relaxed rules on visiting, could I please ask that anyone showing symptoms of Covid, or any other respiratory infection such as a cold, that you stay away until you have recovered. This is to help minimise the risk of bringing Covid or any other infections into our homes. 

Hopefully, this will be one of the last letters I need to write to you all about Covid-19 and restrictions in our care homes. If you would like to keep in touch with all things MHA, I now do a monthly e-newsletter for relatives and many of you have already signed up for this. If you haven’t, details on how to subscribe are at the end of this letter. 

England 

The guidance now published covers visiting and testing, which are outlined below. You can read the detailed guidance at www.gov.uk and search for care home visiting. As I write, the guidance online hasn’t been updated for the public although I anticipate it will by Monday, when it is due to come into force. 

The biggest change for you in the guidance is that visitors will no longer need to test before visiting as tests are not being provided free of charge for visitors. However, we would ask you to seriously consider continuing to test before visiting to avoid bringing Covid-19 into your loved one’s home. We appreciate this would place an additional financial burden on you at a time when living costs are rising, but would ask you to think about this, to avoid your loved one’s home potentially having to close due to an outbreak and in terms of the health of all residents. Sadly we will not be given enough LFD tests to cover testing for all visitors going forward. 

The exception to this will be visitors who provide personal care and they will be added to the home’s testing schedule to do no more than two tests a week.   

All visitors will still need to wear a face mask when they come into the home. 

There should not normally be any restrictions to visits in or out of care homes, including the number of visitors, when there are no restrictions due to outbreaks. This means visiting is almost back to as it was before the pandemic. 

Under the guidance, the term ‘essential care giver’ is now no longer used. Instead, it says every resident can have one visitor who can visit in all circumstances, including during periods of isolation and outbreak. End of life visits will always be facilitated

Testing for residents is now to only be done if they are showing symptoms of Covid-19 as regular asymptomatic testing for residents is being withdrawn. 

Residents who have symptoms of Covid-19 will need to isolate and take two LFD tests 48 hours apart. They can stop isolating if both tests are negative. If positive, they should isolate until they have had two consecutive LFD results taken 24 hours apart at the earliest from days 5 and 6 (Day 0 is the day they test positive or first develop symptoms). If they continue to receive positive test results up to day 10, they can stop isolating after day 10. Any individual who is unable to test should isolate for the full 10 days  Residents who are close contacts of a COVID-19 case do not need to isolate or test. 

If your loved one needs to go into hospital, they will not need to self-isolate when discharged back to the care home, subject to a negative PCR or LFD. They will, however, need to self-isolate for 10 days if they have been discharged from a part of the hospital where there is an active outbreak. They can end this isolation early by having two negative LFD tests 24 hours apart from days 5 and 6 onwards. 

For those who care for your loved one, testing is being reduced to twice a week and using LFD tests. Following a positive result, the care home team will need to test for five days. 

As before, symptomatic staff will need to stay off work until they have had two consecutive negative tests or until either ten days have passed with a single negative test or 14 days if their test continues to say they are positive. 

We do have concerns about the testing and isolation for care home staff, especially in relation to the fact that the Government has removed funding to cover our occupational sick pay payments to colleagues who are having to isolate. We are raising these concerns with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care because of the impact potentially removing occupational sick pay could have on the social care workforce overall. 

Wales

The need for visitors to have evidence of a negative LFD test continues to be the case in Wales and our homes will be provided with tests for you to be able to continue with this. 

Our staff will still have access to LFD tests to enable them to continue to do asymptomatic testing twice a week. 

Face coverings will continue to be a legal requirement in health and care settings for the next three weeks. It is advised that visitors should continue to wear masks/face coverings when in public areas of care homes and when moving through the care home, but may otherwise be removed.

The number of ‘essential visitors’ allowed during an outbreak will be increased to two people and they may visit either separately or at the same time. 

The use of PPE will continue to be recommended for all staff working in social care settings but social distancing can be relaxed for social care staff, care home residents and people receiving care at home when there is no evidence of COVID-19 circulating.

The guidance can be found here https://gov.wales/care-homes-visiting-guidance-visitors-and-residents 

Scotland

There are currently no changes to the need for visitors to test before visiting in Scotland and the testing regime for residents and staff remains unchanged. PPE will continue to be worn. 

This guidance is due to continue until 17 April 2022, when it will be reviewed by the Scottish government. 

The guidance can be found here https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-adult-care-homes-visiting-guidance/ 

Keeping in touch

Over the past few months, I have been keeping family and friends updated with news from our care homes through an email newsletter we introduced last year. Many of you have already signed up to this and I hope you are finding it useful. For those of you who haven’t yet signed up, I would encourage you to do so. We need to get your permission to send you a regular email due to data protection regulations. 

If you would like to sign up to these emails, please go to www.mha.org.uk/contact/keeping-touch  and fill in the form - I look forward to telling you more about our work. 

Thank you for your continued understanding during these challenging times. If you do have any questions, please email mhacoronavirus@mha.org.uk and we will respond as soon as possible.

Kind regards

Sam Monaghan, Chief Executive