Covid-19: Care home residents in England to be allowed one regular visitor

Care home residents in England will be allowed one regular visitor from 8 March, in the first easing of lockdown since its reintroduction last month.

They will be able to meet indoors and hold hands - but visitors must wear PPE and be tested beforehand.

The health secretary said the move was a "first step" to allow more visiting.

Downing Street sources say an "absolute priority" is to try and reunite families and give people more social contact as lockdown is eased.

A final meeting is expected to be held on Sunday before Prime Minister Boris Johnson unveils his road map for easing lockdown on Monday.

The prime minister has said that reopening in schools in England will be the first step.

It is understood that other options under consideration include two households mixing outdoors at some point in the coming weeks.

New data is expected to suggest vaccines have cut transmission rates.

But the latest NHS England data shows that three in 10 care home staff have not received their first coronavirus vaccine, despite being in the top four priority groups for a jab.

Every care home resident in the UK has now been offered their first vaccination.

In addition to the new rule for care homes, outdoor visits - as well as those inside pods or behind screens - will be able to continue.

The government said the new measure, which follows advice from the deputy chief medical officers and Public Health England, is the next step towards normal indoor visits resuming.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he was pleased people would soon be "carefully and safely reunited with loved ones".

"This is just the first step to getting back to where we want to be," he said. "We need to make sure we keep the infection rate down, to allow greater visiting in a step-by-step way in the future."

Liz Kendall, shadow minister for health and social care, said families had been calling for the resumption of care home visits - made safe with access to personal protective equipment and testing - for seven months.

"Over this period, ministers have repeatedly failed to grasp how important families are for the physical and mental health of care home residents, and the appalling impact preventing visits has caused," she said.

In Scotland, care home residents will be allowed up to two designated visitors once a week, under Scottish government guidelines due to be published on Wednesday.

Michael Blakstad says the new visiting rules have come "too late" for his wife Tricia, who has Alzheimer's disease and lives in a care home in Hampshire.

Since moving into the care home last July, Tricia has only been able to see visitors who wear face masks and for a short period of time over a fence, Michael told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He believes the restricted visits, combined with periods of isolation, with no contact other than her carers, has led to her Alzheimer's deteriorating much faster than it should have done.

As a result, Tricia has gone beyond the point where the new visiting provisions would make a meaningful difference, Michael says.

"It's far too late for Tricia now. Two or three months ago, Matt Hancock promised on your programme that every care home would have this testing by Christmas, it didn't, the home Tricia's in never adopted it, and I think it's too late.

"It would have made a difference to us and it will make a difference to new people who come in now, so that's to be thanked for, but it really should have happened a lot earlier... Tricia has passed the point of no return I'm afraid."

Chief nurse for adult social care Prof Deborah Study said while she knew people wanted to "hug and kiss their loved ones", lives could be put at risk so people had to follow the rules.

She added: "We all hope to be able to take further steps in the future."

James Tugendhat, chief executive of HC-One, Britain's largest care home provider, said the move was "welcome news" for families and colleagues.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Visiting is obviously a fundamental and necessary part of care home life and we certainly feel very ready now for visiting to resume, with lateral flow testing, with vaccination, with PPE, with infection control."

While only one named person will be able to make the visits, care homes will have the discretion to allow more than one visitor in exceptional circumstances. Full details on the plans will be given before 8 March.

Nadra Ahmed, executive chair of the National Care Association, said she understood how difficult it would be for families to select just one nominated visitor, but it was about "mitigating risks", adding that it could be "up to the resident sometimes to nominate that person".

She told BBC Breakfast that the biggest issue for care homes would be having enough staff to manage testing and extra cleaning.

"Staff resource is our biggest problem," she said. "We have staff who are exhausted, we've got staff who are going down with Covid and also getting long Covid.

"We have no insurance in our services for Covid-related risks - that still hasn't been sorted out by government in any way, so there will be all sorts of things about mitigating risks, but the default is we want to enable this visiting."

Mike Padgham, chairman of the Independent Care Group, warned there must be "a note of caution" because Covid has not gone away, and called for further clarity on the plans.

He said: "We need some clarification - for example, the announcement says holding hands will be allowed but warns against 'close contact'. How is that going to be possible? There is going to have to be some very close but compassionate supervision of these visits."

The devolved nations of the UK have the power to set their own restrictions, and have been moving at different speeds:

Office for National Statistics data shows that coronavirus infections are continuing to decrease around the UK - but experts have warned that infection levels remain high, with about 553,000 people identified as having the virus.

On Friday, it was announced that another 533 people had died within 28 days of a positive test, bringing the UK's total by that measure to 119,920.