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A social worker visits a client at her home in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, during the pandemic
People visiting nursing home residents must be supervised at all times to ensure social distancing, in accordance with a government winter plan for Covid-19.
It says that visits should be limited and in “intervention areas” should stop completely.
Support for the plan’s nursing homes includes free personal protective equipment until next March.
The boards say the initiative is welcome, but there are significant funding gaps.
Writing to heads of local authorities, Care Minister Helen Whately said that “now is the time to act” to protect nursing homes.
He said visits are “important to the well-being of residents and loved ones,” but additional precautions are needed.
- Residences in England will receive additional funding of £ 546 million
- UK coronavirus cases rise by 3,395
They include regular assessments by local authorities as to whether visits are safe in a particular area, and visits are stopped immediately at locations listed as ‘intervention areas’, Public Health England’s highest alert category where they are they enforce local blocking rules.
In all nursing homes, visitors must be supervised “at all times” to ensure they comply with social distancing requirements and other infection control measures, the plan says.
Before the publication of the plan, Age UK said that some people are “dying of sadness” in nursing homes because they have been isolated from their loved ones for an extended period of time.
Nursing homes in England were allowed to reopen for family visits in July, provided local authorities and public health teams said it was safe. A similar reopening of homes followed in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
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However, many houses have yet to be fully reopened, either keeping strict rules on visitors or banning them altogether.
The government has previously announced that nursing homes will get £ 546 million to try to reduce transmission of the virus as part of its winter plan.
The money will help pay caregivers their full salary when self-isolating and ensures that caregivers only work in a nursing home, reducing the spread of the virus.
BBC social affairs correspondent Alison Holt said that for an industry still reeling from the high death toll, “this plan is important.”
Providing free PPE, such as masks, recognizes the sharp increase in the cost of supplies, he said.
And the new role of head nurse for social care, which will be created under the plan, “should also provide a stronger national voice for the sector.”
But while they welcome the plan, some directors of the council’s care services have said it does not address the need for better pay for care staff.
It also does not provide the funds needed to meet the expected increase in demand, particularly for home care, during the winter, they added.
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Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons that the government would do “everything humanly possible” to protect nursing homes “to be a place of refuge this winter.”
Ministers have also promised that people in nursing homes will be a priority for coronavirus testing, alongside the NHS, amid ongoing problems with the UK testing system.
The coronavirus swept through UK nursing homes during the peak of the outbreak, with tens of thousands of deaths.
Nearly 30,000 more nursing home residents in England and Wales died during the coronavirus outbreak than during the same period in 2019, figures from the Office for National Statistics released in July show. But only two-thirds were directly attributable to Covid-19.
According to the figures, there were just over 66,000 deaths of nursing home residents in England and Wales between March 2 and June 12 this year, compared to just under 37,000 deaths last year.
