Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Helen Whately and Sarah Dines

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

We have sweated blood and tears to support the sector through this pandemic. Last month, we launched the adult social care winter plan, with regular testing for care home staff and residents, free personal protective equipment and mandatory infection prevention and control measures for care providers, supported by £546 million of Government funding. I am enormously grateful to all those on the frontline in social care. I recognise the challenges that they have faced and how many feel daunted by the winter ahead. I say to care workers: “I cannot thank you enough for what you do and I am with you every step of the way.”

[Miss Dines]

I have been contacted by Ann Penrose, who is 91, in good health and in a care home in Ashbourne, Derbyshire Dales. She asked her family to contact Boris, but sadly she got me. Does the Minister agree that the time has come to look very carefully at what is happening in care homes to review the existing measures, routines and guidelines, bearing in mind that we are testing so much now? We need to have a bit more humanity. We are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. These people need their families, yes, in a safe environment, but they do need to have access to families and, at times, to their pets.

[Helen Whately]

My hon. Friend makes an important point about the importance of visiting both to the individuals living in care homes, and to their family and friends. Achieving the balance between protecting care home residents from the risk that covid might be brought into the care home, where it is so hard to control, and giving them access to visitors, has been one of the hardest areas to get right over the past few months. That is why in the summer we issued guidance on safe visiting and gave more freedom on the decisions about visiting to local authorities, with directors of public health working with care homes. I want us to continue to support and enable safe visiting for care homes.