Barchester Healthcare has said it is taking “pre-emptive action” by limiting routine care home visits to essential care givers only up to the Christmas period.
The care home operator announced the action for the period 14-23 December in response to the rising threat of the Omicron variant.
Visiting will also be allowed for those who are not essential care givers but this will take place inside the company’s COVID-secure visiting suites. Window and outdoor visits, if appropriate, and video calls are also being made available.
End of life visits will also continue as required but will be limited to two people.
Residents are also being asked to not leave their homes and will need to go into isolation for a minimum of seven days and test daily for 14 days if they do so.
Jayne Connery, Director of the Care Campaign for the Vulnerable, told CHP: “CCFTV implores all care providers to ensure residents have important family visits particularly the elderly confined to rooms or unable to mobilise living with dementia.
“Restricting vital contact has proven to bring a negative impact on our more vulnerable elderly. We must understand providers have an over-riding legal responsibility to do all they can to keep residents and staff safe and we would hope many understand that they need to balance that responsibility with the human rights of residents and government guidance.
“Providers are no doubt also aware that general sentiment is that throughout the pandemic government action has often been too little and too late and provider’s are forced to act sooner rather than later. CCFTV urges the government to better support the care sector and to start delivering a robust directive during this current threat.”
CHP understands the CQC has been in touch with Barchester regarding the new policy.
The regulator will be issuing guidance on care home visiting policy in the coming days.
Kate Terroni, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at CQC, said: “The pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on many people and we know it has been particularly difficult for those who are living in care homes and their families and loved ones. It is important that people are able to spend time with their loved ones over the festive season, including Christmas Day.
“We have taken decisive action throughout the pandemic to help keep people safe in care settings including undertaking almost 10,000 inspections, and making absolutely clear to providers that blanket approaches to visiting are unacceptable and may trigger an inspection. Where concerns have been raised with us in relation to visiting we have taken action in every case, including following up with providers, inspecting, taking regulatory action and where applicable, raising safeguarding alerts with local authorities.
“We continue to seek assurances from care home providers about how they are supporting visiting to happen and we are verifying this information when we go out and inspect and will continue to do so. We have introduced a mandatory question on each of our care home inspections which looks at how visiting is being supported to happen in a safe way.”
