The National Care Forum (NCF) welcomes the arrival of the guidance on care home visiting as an important first step towards the resumption of meaningful visits for all.
Enabling meaningful visits for people who are living within care homes is absolutely critical and it is very important that the opening up of visiting in care homes is right at the front of the queue when it comes to moving out of lockdown.
Responding to the updated guidance on visiting arrangements in care homes, Vic Rayner, Chief Executive at the National Care Forum, the leading member association for not for profit care providers said:
“The Prime Minister has made a commitment that this, and other cautious moves out of national lockdown, are ‘irreversible’ and he must ensure that all parties at local and national level work together to fulfil that promise. The important introduction of the essential caregiver role will provide the vital continuity that our most vulnerable residents need. It will enable those residents who desperately need to be reconnected with loved ones to be reunited and have them once again a consistent part of their life in the care home.
“Care home providers will continue to need support to implement this guidance. It is reliant on government sustaining free PPE, ongoing access to testing and to recognising the additional costs to care homes in managing the complexities of safe visiting within a pandemic. It is of huge concern that at the same time that the government is relaunching visiting, it has missed the opportunity within the budget to provide assurance that the emergency funding for testing and visiting will be extended beyond the end of March 2021. If the notion of an irreversible step forward in enabling visiting is to be believed, then the government must also put forward an irreversible commitment to resource it.”
NCF have championed the need for meaningful visiting since the first national lockdown. We continue to work in partnership across residents, relatives and care homes to provide a clear focus on the need for visiting. In line with this, we are pleased to launch a suite of resources to support the new visiting guidance. This new resource suite is entitled ‘Partners in Care’ and provides a pledge, charter and useful resources to facilitate visiting.
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Note to Editors:
- The National Care Forum brings together over 130 of the UK’s leading social care organisations, representing large numbers of care providers, offering thousands of services across the country, which are not for profit and always at the heart of community provision. Collectively, these organisations deliver more than £2 billion of social care support to more than 167,000 people in 9,200 settings. The NCF membership body collectively employs more than 95,500 colleagues.
- More information is available on the National Care Forum at www.nationalcareforum.org.uk. @NCFCareForum @vicrayner @NCF_Liz
- For enquiries, please contact Edna Petzen (petzen@nationalcareforum.org.uk)
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