Contact in Care Settings

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am very keen to speak in this debate and to raise the experiences of many of my constituents. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) for introducing this debate, and to the hon. Members for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) and for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for sponsoring it.

Many constituents I know experienced dreadful times with those restrictions during covid. In saying that, I pay tribute to all the care workers and care staff who worked tirelessly through covid and are still working to take care of care home residents. My daughter is a care worker, so I have seen the impact that this has had on her throughout the pandemic. I also express my condolences to all those affected and pay tribute to the campaigners for Rights for Residents, who have brought this campaign to the fore and continue to ask for action.

My hope is that we will hear from the Minister about some action to make the legislative changes we need to make a difference now and to ensure that we learn the lessons of covid and of all the painful stories and experiences we have heard, so that if we are ever in a pandemic again, the same actions are not taken. It is understandable that visiting restrictions were put in place to save the lives of vulnerable care home residents during covid, but they could have been done differently, with much more consideration for the fact that a visitor is not just a “nice to have”, but an essential part of care, and that leaving care home residents without visitors led to a huge deterioration in their mental and physical health.

Many constituents have written to me about the effects of that isolation and lack of contact with relatives during covid. As one relative of a care home resident said:

“As you are aware my mother-in-law died and that’s attributed to the effects of isolation and forced separation and it’s paramount that we learn lessons from what has happened going forward.”

I visited many local care homes myself—respecting all restrictions in place, obviously—and heard about the lasting effects that isolation is having on elderly residents and the disabled even now; for example, residents who have become very reclusive.

The Government must listen to those care home providers who are also demanding an end to visiting restrictions and are not happy with the status quo. Jeremy Richardson, then chief executive officer of Four Seasons Health Care, the UK’s third-largest care home provider, said:

“We are depriving people of their right to visitors, which is an absolute outrage. The government restrictions at the moment are making it very difficult to give people a quality of life… We run care homes. We do not run prisons.”

The restrictions must be evidence-based. In December 2021, an Oxford University study, conducted by a team of eminent scientists led by epidemiologist Dr Tom Jefferson, found evidence that many vulnerable residents died of thirst, starvation and “broken hearts” during the pandemic. They identified that almost 40% of excess fatalities were not caused by the virus, with many people dying of loneliness and neglect. Without the support of visitors, vulnerable residents were left to deteriorate and die.

“Neglect, thirst, and hunger were—and possibly still are—the biggest killers”.

It is clear that care home staff had a huge amount of additional work during covid, but visitors would have alleviated some of that.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report on the human rights implications of the Government’s response to covid in September 2020 and a report on care home visiting during the pandemic in May 2021. Following on from those, it published a report on protecting human rights in care settings, which recognised the balance between the state’s requirement to protect the lives of care users and other rights, including the right to a private and family life, stating that,

“too often the correct balance has not been struck and too much has been left to individual care settings to determine”,

and that

“insufficient respect was given to ensuring meaningful contact between care users and their family members and loved ones”.

We need legislation to ensure that that does not happen again.

The Committee’s report recommended that care users be given,

“the right to nominate one or more individuals to visit and to provide support or care in all circumstances,”

subject to full infection prevention measures, and that the Government should,

“give the CQC the power to require care settings to inform them of any changes to their visiting status, and to report live data”,

so that there is transparency about changes in visiting rights. The Government have not yet responded to this report, as other hon. Members have mentioned, but I hope to hear a response today.

As we have heard many times in this debate, the CQC guidance is just not enough. Rights for Residents is calling on the Government to take urgent action to pass legislation that would give every care home resident the legal right to nominate at least one essential care supporter, who can maintain contact in all circumstances, regardless of outbreaks, lockdowns, variants and future pandemics, and to ensure that care homes are supported in returning to pre-covid, unrestricted visiting arrangements, without the need for appointments or limits on time, frequency or the number of visitors.

In this place, we have a duty to give a voice to those who do not have one, and to fight against injustice. I feel that this debate has done that. I hope it will be heard and that it will result in long-lasting legislative changes that will save lives.