Husband tearfully reunites with wife after year apart because of covid liverpoolecho.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from liverpoolecho.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Relatives’ groups had lobbied for an urgent restart to in-person visits to care homes allowing physical contact, with some families separated for months and reports of severe deterioration of isolated residents.
Guidance for the visits issued on Thursday states “there should not be close physical contact such as hugging” but says “risks [of transmission] can be managed and mitigated, and they should be balanced against the importance of visiting and the benefits it brings to care home residents and their families”. It says all care homes where there is no outbreak should seek to enable indoor visits.
This week relatives of residents at Pelham House, a care home in Folkestone, Kent, that lost half of its 20 residents to Covid in the first wave, were told visits would not go ahead.
It said: It is understandable, after tens of thousands of care home deaths, there should be caution. But, as the Government has said, relatives must now be reunited with their loved ones in care homes and that needs to be backed up by law.
It requires care homes to allow visits by a person significant to the service user and mirrors legislation in Ontario, Canada, where a close relative is regarded part of the care team for the purpose of visits and tests.
The move - exclusively revealed by the Daily Express on Monday - comes after Ms Harman said blanket bans were contrary to the rights of both patients and their families under the Human Rights Act.
Care homes: Law to force homes to allow family visits, hugs and hand holding Giles Sheldrick, Exclusive
Replay Video UP NEXT
The Joint Committee on Human Rights - a powerful select committee of MPs and peers - presented it to Health Secretary Matt Hancock and Prisons Minister Lucy Frazer with a letter laying bare the scandal of continued visitation bans on those in care homes, hospitals and prisons. It wants families legally designated essential carers , guaranteeing them unfettered and regular access. The committee said face to face contact meant indoor contact without fixed physical barriers, like plastic partitions. But it allows hugging, hand holding and touch where both loved ones and residents wear personal protective equipment. The committee, chaired by Labour grandee Harriet Harman, said urgent law changes were needed because of the emotional and psychological needs of both families and lonely loved ones.