Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2022
I am fully supportive of the principles of Anne’s law, and I was moved by the testimony of Anne’s daughter, Natasha Hamilton, and the many others who could not be with their loved ones in care homes at the height of the pandemic.
The Covid pandemic threw challenges at us that are unprecedented in living memory. We all remember the fear of not knowing what Covid-19 was, how it could be spread, who would be most vulnerable and how infectious it could be. In February and March 2020 we had no vaccine, and we looked on with fear at how the virus ripped through Italian towns killing thousands of people, wondering what it would do to us and how we would cope when it arrived.
It was right to be cautious. We did not know what we did not know. Care home residents were particularly vulnerable. We now know what it is to live through a pandemic, we know a lot more about infection control and we recognise how important emotional support and family care are, alongside infection control.
I do not often do personal speeches, but I will do now. I last saw my gran, Anna Taylor, in February 2020. She was living in the Oakbridge care home in Knightswood in my friend Bill Kidd’s constituency. When my sister and I visited with my parents, we were joined by her excellent key worker, Bismay, a wonderful woman who went above and beyond for my gran. Bismay gently prompted my gran to say who her visitors were. “Relatives,” she said, with firm commitment. She did not really recognise her granddaughters, but she still enjoyed seeing us. There was a bit of determination in her answer to Bismay: she was determined to get that question right. She always recognised my dad.
During the pandemic there were short periods when Anna’s sons and daughter could not visit but, overall, Covid infection was limited and quickly contained. Oakbridge’s infection control was outstanding. When the staff could do so, they facilitated visits from my uncle, aunt and father so that they could come in and see their mother, sometimes clad in full PPE from top to toe at the height of the pandemic, and always rigorously tested, up until Anna passed last year—not from Covid, I must add, but from old age. She was 97—and she would be absolutely horrified that I am divulging her age.
I spoke to my uncle and my dad this morning about Oakbridge, and they could not praise the staff there highly enough—with the regular telephone updates from Bismay, the facilitation of safe visiting whenever possible, the rigorous protection of vulnerable residents from infection and, always, attention to and understanding of the emotional needs of the residents and their families. Oakbridge is a model of what care should look like.
We have learned a lot these past two years and, if that learning can make the rights and the emotional wellbeing of care home residents firmer and if it can support our excellent care homes to safely facilitate them, I am all for it. I am grateful for the opportunity that our debate on Anne’s law has given me to mention the great care that Oakbridge gave Anna, what its staff did to ensure that her children could always see her and how much that meant, and still means, to my family.
16:53