Care homes: Residents win right to more visits

CARE home residents in England will be able to reunite with five different friends or family members, it was announced yesterday.

In a significant easing of visiting restrictions, the Prime Minister said from Monday residents will have greater freedom to see loved ones and go on trips out without isolating.

Care minister Helen Whately last night said the Government was committed to making care home visits ‘as normal as possible by the summer’.

From next week, residents will be able to choose five different ‘named visitors’ who they can meet indoors and hold hands with, provided they test negative for Covid.

Currently they are allowed just two visitors, forcing some into agonising choices over which children or family members they should pick.

The new guidance is a victory for the Daily Mail, which has campaigned for an end to inhumane visiting bans.

Boris Johnson told the Downing Street press conference yesterday: ‘ We will increase the number of named visitors for those in care homes from two to five and residents will have greater freedoms to leave their home without having to isolate on their return.’ For much of the past year, some residents have been banned from receiving any visitors at all.

This led to sharp deteriorations in their mental and physical health, with thousands ‘dying of loneliness and isolation’ without being allowed to say goodbye to their loved ones.

The Prime Minister also said he will scrap a draconian rule forcing residents who leave their care home for any reason to isolate alone in their room for 14 days on their return.

The decision to allow ‘lowrisk’ trips outside the home follows a legal challenge by dementia rights organisation John’s Campaign, which said the self-isolation rule ‘falsely imprisoned’ residents and breached human rights law.

It means residents will be able to visit hospitals as outpatients, GPs, dentists and day centres as well as workplaces and schools.

Mrs Whately said: ‘It is absolutely right as people in wider society enjoy more freedoms, those living in care homes get the chance to return towards normality too.’

However, Helen Wildbore, of the Relatives and Residents Association, said: ‘ These changes are welcome but they are baby steps forward for those living in care whilst the rest of the country leaps ahead. Some of the changes are not even a step forward at all but merely bring an end to terrible policies which have been imposed only on care users.’