Latest Care Home Visiting Survey
Current Government guidance in England states that there should be no restrictions on care home visiting, with the exception of infection prevention and control measures during an active coronavirus outbreak in the home. In the event of an outbreak, residents should be able to have one visitor at a time inside the care home (this visitor does not need to be the same person throughout the outbreak).
In September 2022, we carried out an online survey in collaboration with the Relatives and Residents Association. The survey asked people who had a friend or family member living in a care home in England about their experiences of visiting restrictions from April-September 2022. In particular we asked about any additional visiting restrictions (aside from the ‘one at a time’ rule) that were applied during outbreaks, and the reasons given by the care setting if additional restrictions were imposed. We also asked whether care homes were still applying any visiting restrictions outside of known outbreak situations.
The results of our latest survey are hugely concerning, showing that a high proportion of care homes are applying additional visiting restrictions during outbreaks, against current guidance. In the majority of these cases, care homes told families they were following advice from local Public Health or Local Authority teams. Furthermore, many care homes were still applying blanket visiting restrictions outside of outbreak situations.
This survey was undertaken by Alice Roberts with support from Harriet Wright (both volunteers with Rights for Residents). A summary of our survey findings, along with the full survey report, can be downloaded using the links below.
We are hugely grateful to everyone who took the time to respond to this survey and support us with this work. You can read the summary of the survey findings here:
SUMMARY REPORT – Visiting restrictions in care homes
