Update On Care Home Visiting - England

6 November 2020

Update on care home visiting in England from Sam Monaghan, Chief Executive 

You will no doubt be aware that the Government has now published its guidance for visiting care homes and I am pleased that it will allow us to facilitate indoor visits, where we are able to, and in areas where it is safe to do so.

We will now need to contact local Directors of Public Health, who we need to work with closely on the safety and any limitations on visiting, given the local infection rate and context of each home. 

We want visits to take place wherever possible, but rightly we are tasked with doing this in a way that mitigates the risk to your loved one who we are caring for. The guidance spells out how we must mitigate these risks and we will be working this through over the next few days.

Therefore, over this weekend (6-9 November), end of life, essential family carer and window visits only, will continue while we work through the details of the guidance. As I am sure you can appreciate, each of our 90 homes is different so we need to assess each one against the guidance. 

It is still our strong belief that the best way to secure safe visits is through routine testing of at least one relative or friend for each resident and we will continue to call for this. We’ve seen the impact of routine testing with our residents and staff, where combined with PPE and other infection control measures, this has meant there has so far been less of an impact in our homes in the second wave. 

Please be assured that as soon as we have worked through the guidance and looked at what it means for each of our homes and our residents, we will be in contact again.