Family Visits in Health and Social Care Settings: Covid-19

Helen Whately Excerpts

Wednesday 11th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey. I congratulate and sincerely thank my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) for securing this debate. My thanks also go to all those who have come here today and made such powerful speeches, talking about the really difficult situation of visiting restrictions in care homes. My hon. Friend spoke extremely powerfully on behalf of Jamie, acting as his advocate in this tragic situation. I thank her for discussing this with me in advance of the debate; I am looking into that case.

As many hon. Members have said this afternoon, and as Minister for Care I strongly agree, visiting is incredibly important for those living in care homes. It is hard to put into words how paramount, how crucial, contact with their loved ones is for residents in care homes, but let me offer three reasons. First, for the individual in residential care, it can be what makes life worth living. The chance to see a loved one—a husband, wife, son, daughter, grandchildren or oldest friend—these visits are things to look forward to.

Secondly, visits to see their loved ones are important for family members. I have recently heard about a couple, both in their 90s; the wife is living in a care home and her husband always used to go to see her, but he has not been able to do so for months. This is actually affecting him more than it is his wife, who sadly has much less awareness of the situation due to her advanced dementia. It is affecting him because he is not able to see her. So the visits are important for the family who want to visit as well.

The third reason is the role that families and visitors play in making sure their loved one living in the care home is safe and well—the role they play in their care, in fact. Hon. Members have spoken today about the problem of residents, especially those with dementia, who are deteriorating without the visits they are used to. The advocacy role is also important, as my hon. Friend mentioned.

To step back a moment, the Government’s overall aim is to keep people in care homes safe and well—as safe and well as possible in the extremely difficult circumstances of a pandemic of a virus that is so cruel in in how it affects the old and most vulnerable. As the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) said, it is an incredibly hard balance to strike, and I appreciate the way she spoke about that. On the one hand we want to enable visits to care homes, to enable people to have the things that make life worth living, but on the other hand, we know that when covid has got into care homes, when there have been outbreaks, it has been extremely hard for care homes to control it. That we have seen so many deaths of people in care homes is tragic. The hon. Lady is absolutely right; it is a cause of sleepless nights for me and others who are trying to make the right decisions.

In my remarks, I intend to speak first about what has happened, then say where we are now, and finally look ahead. I will do my best to pick up some of the questions and comments from colleagues.

When the pandemic hit us, it is true to say that visits were stopped, other than in exceptional circumstances such as end of life. The problem was so bad and there seemed to be such a risk for care homes that visits were stopped. During that period, I spoke to care workers who really went the extra mile to support care home residents through that time—to try to make their lives still worth living and to have positive moments, and to use technology to keep people in touch.

I am not naïve—I know that having a screen is not the answer to the problem of visiting, but for some people in some circumstances it has enabled more contact between those living in residential care and their families. It certainly does not work for everybody. It is not the whole answer.

That is one reason why, as covid rates came down during the summer, new guidance was published on 22 July to encourage the opening up of care homes and to enable more visiting. It supported local discretion; the director of public health and the local authority would work with care homes to agree a reasonable level of safe visiting, using PPE and social distancing and so on. I was very keen to see care homes opening again. Many people did have the chance to see their family members in care homes during that period. Unfortunately, not every care home managed to open its doors at that point and, as the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) mentioned, those in tier 2 or tier 3 high-risk areas still maintained strict restrictions on visiting.

As the hon. Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned, there is a real problem of closed environments. One of the things that visitors do is raise a concern if there is a situation in a care home. She and I have spoken about an issue in her constituency a while ago, which was of great concern. That is why, when we went into the current lockdown, I was determined that we should not return to the situation of the first lockdown, where care homes were closed. I was determined that we should continue what visiting we could safely allow, and continue to have the Care Quality Commission crossing the threshold of care homes to identify and investigate where concerns had been raised. That is why the current visiting guidance is to encourage care homes to enable covid-secure visits, using screens, windows, visiting pods and so on.

Some care homes have been incredibly creative and innovative. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter) had a great example of a care home in his constituency. The guidance draws on methods that we have seen care homes using over the last few months, with the aim of getting others to follow suit. It is supported by being able to draw on the infection control fund. We have put £1.1 billion into funding to support care homes with the extra costs of providing covid-secure care.

I absolutely hear the message. This is not where we want to be. I want people to be able to hold hands again, hug again and have the physical contact we all need, which is particularly important for those with dementia and those for whom this whole situation is confusing or frightening. We know it has been bad for their health and wellbeing. Right now, however, to allow such contact goes strongly against the clinical advice I have received.

I have been advised that every single additional person going into a care home takes with them the risk of taking covid into that setting. In some parts of the country, one in 40 people have covid. If there is a care home with 40 beds and each person has a visitor, one of those visitors may well be carrying covid into that care home, unbeknownst to them, because they may well have no symptoms. When it gets in, it can be extremely hard to control. That is why we have taken a cautious approach, but I absolutely want to open up care homes to allow for the kind of visiting that people want. I am looking ahead.

Hon. Members have asked about testing, which will be so helpful in reducing the risk that someone going into a care home is taking covid with them. We have a huge testing programme in place in care homes for staff and residents. Staff are tested weekly, and the vast majority of staff are now undergoing that. That is really valuable in catching covid outbreaks early. Residents are tested every 28 days, and the next step is testing for visitors. A trial will be launched this month in four local authorities in areas of lower prevalence, where the risk is lower. That will launch on 16 November in a range of 30 different care homes both to assess the practicalities of testing and to make sure that we are confident in its safety. That will trial both the polymerase chain reaction—PCR—test that has been used for some time and the newly introduced lateral flow test that can be turned around quickly.

Trialling both will enable us to see which is the best to enable visiting, and we then plan to roll that out more widely across the country in December to see how many visits testing will enable. I am optimistic that that, combined with the lower covid rates that our national self-discipline during the lockdown should achieve, will make it much more feasible to enable more testing. Looking ahead, the prospect of a vaccine that may be effective against covid, alongside testing and a supply of PPE, should put us in a much better position to achieve the level of visiting that we all want.

[Dan Carden]

Mass testing is taking place in Liverpool and many people are hopeful that that will allow for more visits to care homes in the weeks ahead. Will the Minister comment on what talks she has had with Liverpool about that?

[Helen Whately]

I am happy to do that, because I have been looking into that issue as well. The guidance I have been given is that Public Health England and those running the trial want it to take place first in the 30 care homes, which I mentioned. That will enable us to have confidence that those who have had a lateral flow test will be able to visit. There is sequencing to be done, but the issue is at the top of my mind. Lateral flows tests are already being used, and we should make the most of that to enable visiting. I hope to be able to put that more formally in writing in due course.

In the time available, I wish to pick up on a few of the other points that were made in the debate. The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) referred to the 30-minute time limit. I believe that that must be something that the care home in question has chosen to put in place. Our guidance advises that one should book a visit with a care home, but does not stipulate a 30-minute limit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) set out an excellent list of things for me to take forward. Many of them are indeed in train, such as testing and work on the vaccine. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation has proposed that care home staff and residents should be at the top of the list for that. He mentioned a reporting mechanism, which I am also taking forward.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) referred to the lottery of visits. On the one hand, we responded to local authorities and care homes when they asked for more discretion and a local say in how we respond to the pandemic; on the other, we can find that in one area there is far more access than in another, so we need to combine allowing local discretion with being able to investigate whether somewhere is not being so supportive of visits. We need to ask what is going on and how can we bring this about.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield focused on the situation of those of working age living in a residential care home. As she said, they have been talked about less during the pandemic than those of an older age, but the people of working age living in residential care are absolutely at the top my mind. As we have seen during the pandemic, those with learning disabilities might be at greater risk if they catch covid, and, like those of an older age with dementia, they need family visits and the support, love and advocacy of a family member.

As my hon. Friend also said, the pandemic has shone a light on some of the problems that existed in our social care system before the pandemic. Yes, the pandemic has been hard for social care, but there were problems before. Although the vast majority of care homes have provided wonderful supportive care—indeed, loving care—for those who live in their buildings, some have sadly let down those they care for. We must continue to identify, intervene and prevent cases where there is neglect or, worse, the abuse of those living in residential care.

We are in the thick of a pandemic that has made life so hard for those living and working in the social care sector. We have to step forward, get on the front foot and really achieve the social care reform that everyone has been crying out for, for so long. This is an, “If not now, when?” moment. We will seize this moment not only to support social care through the pandemic, but to bring about a system of social care where we can hold our heads up high and be happy for the care of our loved ones, our friends and family, or indeed for ourselves, should the time come when we need it.