Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what additional support he is providing to hospices to allow family members to present at the end of life during the covid-19 outbreak.

In October 2020, NHS England published a new set of visiting guidelines, which aims to ensure that families have more contact with their loved ones towards the end of their lives while also managing infection risks. The new guidelines, ‘Visiting healthcare inpatient settings principles during the Covid-19 pandemic’, advise the NHS and other healthcare organisations, including hospices, on how to facilitate visiting wherever possible. These guidelines are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/03/C0751-visiting-healthcare-inpatient-settings-principles-131020_.pdf