A CARE home boss has hit out at the inconsistent advice from the Government over rules on visiting elderly residents.
David Crabtree, who runs Crabtree Care Homes, a family business operating two care homes in Keighley and Bradford, West Yorkshire, told GB News residents were desperate to hear children singing again this Christmas.
In a moving interview with GB News, he said: “The care home is on the wrong side of the law if they’re refusing to allow visitors. Families are integral to our homes. What we are is a home. We desperately want the children to come back singing. We do want the visitors back in. But we need to be safe.
Speaking to Stephen Dixon and Anne Diamond on GB News, Mr Crabtree added: “The CQC [Care Quality Commission] are inept. They’re not fit for purpose. The plethora of Government guidelines that were coming out week after week after week…was so inconsistent, so behind the loop, that care homes eventually had to make up their own, pretty much, guidance.
“We’ve all been left pretty much to devise what we think is, right now, whether care homes who do not allow everybody are entitled to follow up safeguarding at their local authority, and a safeguarding officer will attend and has the right of enforcement to go in.”
Mr Crabtree’s comments come after a report indicating care homes and hospitals will be forced to allow visitors under plans being drawn up by the government.
Helen Whately, the care minister, said shutting out relatives showed a lack of humanity.
Covid-19 rules mean some of the country’s most vulnerable people still cannot have loved ones at their bedside.
Hundreds of care homes still refuse to accept visitors entirely, according to government figures, while others restrict residents to one relative at a time. A recent survey of people with loved ones in care homes found at least one where phone calls had been stopped for fear that handsets would get infected.
In June NHS leaders told hospitals they should return to pre-pandemic policies on visiting and patients being accompanied in A&E or to appointments. The guidance said “no patient should be alone during their care unless this is their choice”.
Masks should not be “routinely required” of visitors, but there is local discretion. In care homes, government advice restricting visitors was lifted at the end of March and guidance now says even residents with Covid-19 should be allowed to receive one visitor at a time.
