Health

Calls to lift lockdown in UK care homes over fears for residents' mental health


Senior social care leaders are calling on ministers to prioritise unlocking care homes amid growing concerns that mental health problems are contributing to the deaths of residents.

Most care homes have been closed to visitors since the lockdown began, to prevent the spread of Covid-19, but many fear the lack of contact with loved ones has had serious consequences on residents’ mental and physical wellbeing.

The Relatives & Residents Association (RRA), a care charity, said at least half of all calls to its helpline were from people concerned about the mental health of elderly relatives in care homes.

“We need urgent action to prevent a mental health crisis in care,” Helen Wildbore, the RRA’s director, said. “We’ve seen visits from family and friends being restricted, and that ends a crucial source of emotional support for people, but it also ends the normal oversight that those family members have.”

Those with dementia are unable to understand why familiar faces have gone, and many go into a decline. Before Covid-19, 1,500 hospitals and care homes had backed John’s Campaign, launched in the Observer in 2014 after the death of Dr John Gerrard, to give carers of people with dementia the right to stay with them in hospital.

Although there have been several announcements by the government about easing lockdown restrictions for the wider population, the guidance for care homes has not been updated since April.

“We need to put the same energy and imagination into opening up care homes as we’re putting into opening up the great British pub,” said Vic Rayner, executive director of the National Care Forum, which represents non-profit care homes.

James Bullion, president of Adass, which represents social services directors, said: “We cannot ease the restrictions upon the rest of society while keeping people with care and support needs locked down indefinitely. 

“There must be a plan for home care, care homes, those who have been discharged from hospital without a care assessment, people with mental health conditions, people with learning disabilities and autism, and families in which a member is being shielded. This is about human rights and individual lives.”

Pat Benson’s 92-year-old father, Benjamin, started living in a nursing home in Northumberland nearly three years ago to treat his Alzheimer’s. “It’s terribly worrying,” she said. “In the very early days, I was doing window visits. And the home pulled that because they said there was a risk from the airborne virus.”

Now she has to rely on a daily Whatsapp call. “He does seem to recognise my face,” she said. “But he can’t speak to me. And he’s sleepy, he’s lethargic, he’s lost weight.”

Some homes have allowed visitors. Sara Livadeas, chief executive of the Fremantle Trust, a charity running care homes in Buckinghamshire, said it had already allowed garden visits and was considering setting up a visiting room with a Perspex screen.

She said: “We don’t expect government to have all the answers. What we want them to do is to let us work out the best way to do things.”



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