‘Inhumane’ to force families apart, health secretary told

THE social care minister warned that restrictions on visitors to care homes were “inhumane” – but residents remained isolated for months.

Helen Whately sent a Whatsapp message to Matt Hancock in October 2020 warning him against preventing “husbands seeing wives”, as England moved into a “tiered” lockdown system with tighter restrictions in areas with higher levels of Covid.

The minister continued to express concerns to the health secretary as the country went back into national lockdowns, telling him that the elderly were at risk of “just giving up” because they had been isolated for so long.

Despite the repeated warnings, visits to care homes only returned to something like normality in July 2021.

Care homes were closed to visitors in March 2020 when Britain was first plunged into lockdown, although it took a week before restrictions were officially written into care home guidance.

While the rules were varied throughout the pandemic, in practice many care home residents spent months apart from their families, including spouses.

Even when rules were relaxed, residents spent months limited to seeing the same individuals each time, often without being allowed to touch, or only through a Perspex screen.

On Oct 12, 2020 – two days before the Government introduced the new “tiers” system of local lockdowns at the start of the second wave – Ms Whately told Mr Hancock that she had concerns about the proposed visiting restrictions.

“I’m hearing there’s pressure to ban care home visiting in tier 2 as well as tier 3. Can you help? I really oppose that,” she wrote. “Where care homes have Covid-secure visiting we should be allowing it. To prevent husbands seeing wives because they happen to live in care homes for months and months is inhumane.”

When the rules came into force a few days later, care home residents who lived in tier 1 – the level with the most relaxed restrictions – were told they could only have up to two consistent visitors. Those who lived in tiers with tighter restrictions were banned from having visitors at all, unless there were “exceptional circumstances” such as “end of life”.

However, on Nov 5, when England entered its second lockdown, care home residents were allowed up to two visitors, though some care homes imposed bans.

The second wave of the pandemic turned out to be the most lethal in care homes, but by the end of January 2021, nearly all care home residents had been vaccinated and the Government was starting to plan the route out of lockdown.

In a message to Mr Hancock, Ms Whately said: “As I think I’ve flagged, we do need to be ready with policy on visiting, given risks of lives lost through old people just giving up as well as Covid ... and expectation that vaccine = safe to visit.”

Mr Hancock resisted making any swift changes. “Yes on visiting but only after a few weeks. Meanwhile we need to hit the end-of-month target!” he said.

Restrictions on visiting people in care homes were eased in stages over the following few months. Visits almost returned to normal on July 19, 2021, although some restrictions were reimposed later that year as Covid rates rose again.

‘We need to be ready with policy on visiting, given risks of lives lost through old people just giving up’