Hope that care homes will soon open doors

CARE home residents could be reunited with their relatives for indoor visits within the next few weeks, industry bosses have said.

The leader of Scotland’s care homes body said he was hopeful of the move, with some families denied face-to-face indoor contact with their loved ones for almost a year.

Covid-19 swept through residential homes during the first wave of the pandemic in Scotland. Almost half of those who died were in care homes.

Since March, many have been locked down to all but the most essential visits, such as end-of-life farewells.

Pensioners living in residential homes are at a high risk of catching coronavirus and succumbing to it because of their frailty.

The virus easily spreads from person-toperson in those living in close contact with each other.

But there is growing distress and anger from families who are separated from their

‘A real terror and fear of the virus’

loved ones and have only been able to see them through windows or via video calls.

Relatives have even threatened legal action and said they will withhold fees until the issue is resolved.

Now at least 90 per cent of care home residents have received their first vaccine dose and some health boards say all their homes have been visited by vaccine teams.

Dr Donald Mackaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, said he hoped care home visits would resume as soon as possible.

He added: ‘With some care homes operators there is a real terror and fear of the virus being introduced.

‘The vaccine offers another protection. We need to get to the stage where combined with the vaccine and rapid flow tests and PPE, we are working to a situation where we can begin to open up visiting as quickly as possible.

‘There is a huge amount of work going on. I hope in the next few weeks to move to a stage of inside visiting, which will be closer to the normality we are used to.’

He added that a number of factors need to be taken into consideration. As well as having a high number of individuals vaccinated in a home, a wait of around three weeks from the first dose is necessary to build up immunity.

Scientists are also still researching whether vaccinated individuals can still pass the virus on to others if they get it.

Meanwhile rapid flow tests, which are available to homes, are able to detect within 30 minutes if a visitor has the virus.

There have been some concerns about the reliability of these tests. But a Government study has found that these can detect Covid-19 in up to 90 per cent of those with the virus.

Care home deaths have also risen since the summer, when relatively few were reported.

In the week ending September 13, there were no care home deaths with confirmed Covid. But that has gradually risen and in the week ending January 10 there were 137, although that is not as high as the death toll early in the pandemic, when 651 covid deaths were recorded in the week ending April 19.

Dr Macaskill added: ‘Staff and managers have seen devastation. Nobody wants to keep people out. Everyone wants to keep people safe and I am convinced we will be able to move to that, but we need to be guided by government clinicians.’

But Alison Walker, a member of the campaign group Care Home Relatives Scotland and whose parents are in a care home, said: ‘This won’t happen in a few weeks. We’re looking at another six months unless emergency legislation comes in for a family caregiver to be given the same rights as a careworker.

‘Scientists need to factor in the humanity aspect as the elderly in care homes don’t have long. Many are dying alone.

‘There is no compassion, no empathy and relatives feel completely and utterly let down and bereft.’

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘It has been a particularly difficult time for people living in care homes, and their loved ones. Our aim is to keep this situation under control while the vaccination programme continues to make progress and get case numbers back to very low levels again.

‘A legal right to visit has been raised by relatives, and while we believe measures offer the fastest route to improve the situation, we are exploring all options and engaging with people.’

‘Nobody wants to keep people out’