Covid 19 and Visiting

Contact with relatives and friends is fundamental to care home residents’ health and wellbeing and visiting is encouraged.   

Where visiting is modified during an outbreak of COVID-19 or where a care home resident has confirmed COVID-19, every resident will be enabled to continue to receive one visitor at a time inside the care home.   

End-of-life visiting will always be supported, and testing is not required in any circumstances for an end-of-life visit.    

Visitors should not enter the care home if they are feeling unwell, even if they have tested negative for COVID-19, are fully vaccinated and have received their booster. Transmissible viruses such as flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and norovirus can be just as dangerous to care home residents as COVID-19. If visitors have any symptoms that suggest other transmissible viruses and infections, such as cough, high temperature, diarrhoea or vomiting, they should avoid the care home until at least 5 days after they feel better.  

It is important that any visitor follows the infection protection control processes put in place by the care home, such as practising hand hygiene and wearing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). Additional requirements may be inplace during a confirmed outbreak. Visitors should consider taking up any COVID-19 and flu vaccines they are eligible for. 

Care workers and visitors to care homes do not routinely need to wear a face mask.

However, there are certain circumstances where it is recommended for staff and visitors to wear a face mask to minimise the risk of transmission of COVID-19. These are:

• if a person being cared for is known or suspected to have COVID-19 (staff and visitors are recommended to wear a Type IIR fluid-repellent surgical mask)
• if a COVID-19 outbreak has been identified within a care home
• if a care recipient would prefer care workers or visitors to wear a mask while providing them with care

We also support the personal preferences of care workers and visitors who wish to wear a mask.

Individual approaches may be needed as the wearing of face masks may cause distress to some residents. In circumstances where wearing a face mask causes distress to a resident, face masks may be removed when the visit is not in a communal area of the care home. However, other mitigations should be considered, including limiting close contact, increased ventilation (while maintaining a comfortable temperature) and transparent face masks.  

Children under the age of 11, who are visiting the care home, may choose whether to wear face masks. However, they should be encouraged to follow the infection protection control guidelines such as practising hand hygiene.    

Care home residents will no longer be asked to isolate following high-risk visits out of the care home (including following emergency hospital stays) and will not be asked to take a test following a visit out.

Please contact us for a full version of our Visiting Policy, and for any additional infection protection control measures that may currrently be in place.