Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to facilitate safe contact between the guests of care homes and their families to mitigate the effects of loneliness on mental health during the covid-19 outbreak.

We are aware that limiting visits in care homes has been difficult for many families and residents who want to see their loved ones.

We published updated visiting guidance on 15 October 2020, which set out tightened infection prevention and control measures to enable visits to continue safely, based on the views of their local Director of Public Health.

Care homes should provide support to visitors on how to prepare for a visit, including the appropriate infection control precautions.

For areas at local COVID alert level medium visits to care homes can continue as set out in the care homes visiting guidance. For areas at local COVID alert level high and very high visits to care homes should return to exceptional circumstances only such as end of life.

Our priority remains the prevention of infection in care homes to protect staff and residents and we are considering plans to test specific family and friends to reduce the risk of visiting care homes. We will set out further details in due course.