Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Covid-19: Care Home Visits

Tuesday 17 November 2020 · 3 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 1 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Ellie Reeves asked the Minister about steps to ensure safe visits for relatives in care homes during the covid-19 outbreak.
  • The Government published new guidance to allow visits to continue during the current national restrictions.
  • Liz Kendall inquired why the Government does not use some of the spare daily test capacity to enable safe family visits to care homes.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Ellie Reeves Lab Lewisham West and East Dulwich
NHS Social Care
Context

The MP is concerned about the impact of limited visits on residents, particularly those with dementia.

Question

What steps his Department is taking to help ensure that family members can safely visit relatives in care homes during the covid-19 outbreak. There are almost 2,000 people living with dementia in Lewisham and for those in residential care, a lack of social interaction through visits can cause their condition to deteriorate.

Answer from Helen Whately

Visits from loved ones are what makes life worth living for many care home residents, yet, sadly, these have been too few over the last few months. Unlike the first lockdown, during this period of national restrictions, we want visits to be able to continue. That is why we published new guidance on 5 November advising care homes of the steps that they can take to allow safe visiting while there are high rates of covid in the community. Yesterday, we launched our visitor testing trial and plan to offer visitor testing to care homes across the country by Christmas.

Answered
Was this summary accurate? Tell us

How accurate was this summary? (1 = poor, 5 = spot on)

Get updates like this by email
Q2 Ellie Reeves Lab Lewisham West and East Dulwich
Care & Healthcare Workers NHS
Context

The MP notes that a lack of social interaction through visits can cause deterioration in dementia patients' conditions. She questions why testing was not done months ago.

Question

Testing for family and friends is the way forward, but the Government's pilot for this was launched only this week and just 20 care homes are included. With the festive period rapidly approaching, why was this not done months ago, and is it not just another example of the Government delivering too little, too late?

Answer from Helen Whately

We have been testing and have prioritised testing in care homes going back as far as May, and we have been carrying out whole care home testing. We are now testing over 500,000 staff and residents in care homes every week. Now, as testing capacity increases, we are launching the visitor testing trial with 20 care homes across Hampshire, Devon and Cornwall. We will use the lessons from that trial to roll out testing more widely across the country as fast as we possibly can.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The timing of the pilot scheme and addressing it fully.

How: Under Review, Lessons From The Trial

Was this summary accurate? Tell us

How accurate was this summary? (1 = poor, 5 = spot on)

Get updates like this by email
Q3 Liz Kendall Lab Leicester West
Care & Healthcare Workers NHS
Context

The MP argues that the current scale of the task is not understood and urgent action is needed.

Question

If the Government believe that weekly tests make it safe for care home staff to go to work, why not just do the same for families? Will the Minister now agree that a proportion of the 157,000 tests that are currently spare capacity every day will be ring-fenced for family visits so that we can safely bring all families back together in time for Christmas?

Answer from Helen Whately

I absolutely want to enable relatives to go and visit their loved ones in care homes, but we have to remember that we are against a backdrop where covid is incredibly cruel to those living in care homes. We have seen outbreaks that have gone from one resident across to almost all residents within a few days, with staff also affected, so we have to get the balance right. We have to make sure that we do this in a way that is safe to residents and staff. That is why we are carrying out the trial to learn the lessons, so that we can then safely roll out testing and more visiting across the whole country.

Not addressed: Allocation of spare testing capacity for family visits.

How: Getting The Balance Right, Safely Rolling Out Testing

Was this summary accurate? Tell us

How accurate was this summary? (1 = poor, 5 = spot on)

Get updates like this by email