Dementia: Coronavirus

(asked on 2nd November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of enabling a family carer to support a relative with dementia in hospital during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Edward Argar Portrait
Edward Argar
Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
This question was answered on 27th November 2020

The health, safety and wellbeing of patients, communities, individuals and teams remain our absolute priority.

NHS England and NHS Improvement’s guidance ‘Visiting healthcare inpatient settings during the COVID-19 pandemic’ has consistently been that there should be reasonable adjustments to allow certain groups of people, including people with dementia, to have a family member or friend visit them if not being present would cause the patient to be distressed. This applies to all inpatient settings.

In addition, to support the provision of person-centred care for older people, including those with dementia, local National Health Service trusts provide hospital passport templates that can be completed before attending hospital as an inpatient or outpatient. The hospital passport outlines, from the patient's perspective, what they would like staff to know about them and their care to help personalise their admission.

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