Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department will take to help maintain contact between social care residents and their families while care homes are unable to facilitate in-person visits during the covid-19 outbreak.

We recognise how important it is to allow care home residents to safely meet their loved ones, especially for those at the end of their lives. We appreciate the particular challenges visiting restrictions pose for people with dementia, people with learning disabilities and autistic adults, amongst others, as well as for their loved ones. On 5 November we published guidance to enable COVID-19-secure visits to take place for care home residents while national restrictions are in place.

We recognise that in certain circumstances, such as where there is an outbreak of COVID-19, care providers may not be able to facilitate in person visits. We have previously announced that up to 11,000 iPad tablets, worth £7.5 million, will be distributed to thousands of care homes across England to help residents keep in touch with loved ones and to reduce the risk of infection from people going into homes as coronavirus cases continue to rise.