Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 November 2020
I am grateful to Mr Cameron for those really important questions. I have met some care home relatives and am due to meet them again this week, I believe. I have heard some very distressing stories. I completely agree on the importance of finding a better way to balance safety with the necessary connections between many care home residents and family, loved ones and friends, noting the support that that brings. That often involves nutrition, or it can be support for those suffering from dementia, and it can absolutely help to address loneliness and isolation.
In answer to Mr Cameron’s specific questions, yes: we have considered and are considering whether the designated visitor might not always be the one person. In the normal course of things, if my mum was still with us and I was a designated visitor for her, I would not necessarily always be able to go every time, so I would want someone else to be able to go, too—a sibling or whoever it might be. We have that in place, with a designated visitor and back-up, although we probably need to be clearer about that.
A Covid-19-secure space is an excellent idea. Often, that is the individual’s own room. The new guidance on designated visitors—with visiting times of up to four hours and so on—includes touch. People should not be chaperoned, and there should be personal protective equipment. The additional testing will assist with that, too. Those arrangements should allow for the holding of hands, the kiss on the cheek or whatever.
It is not always possible in all care homes to have a designated Covid-secure space, other than the individual’s own room, so the arrangements have to be flexible enough to be applied in different care home settings, depending on the physical infrastructure that they have. Together with care home providers and Scottish Care, we are considering having a Covid-responsible officer to act as a link, which would help care homes to begin to implement some of those arrangements in a pragmatic way that gives their staff confidence that they are meeting what we need while being flexible enough.
That takes me to Mr Cameron’s last question, on lack of uniformity. There is a real lack of uniformity across the sector. As members know, services are provided by the public sector, the private sector and the independent sector. On balance, there is an understandable hesitancy on the part of many providers to take what they believe might be an additional risk. That is why we need to help them much more to understand how to assess risk, apply all those measures, and get a better balance, so that they feel confident that they will not be got at, or blamed, if they have a case of Covid. It is a really vicious virus—it sneaks in everywhere. Therefore, we have to put in place as many support measures as possible.
There are discussions to be had with our directors of public health, who have a key role in helping care home providers to assess the level of risk in the surrounding community, because that plays into the amount of risk that can be taken, and what additional measures need to be in place, in an individual care home in a particular location.
There is a lot to do with regard to the detail behind the plan, but those questions are important.