On Thursday in the House I supported my colleague Dan Carden MP in obtaining a debate on Contact In Care Settings. The debate covered the rights of care home residents’ as well as those in health care and hospital settings to see their family members during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Dan sadly lost his own father to lung cancer last year and battled with his hospital for access during his last few days.

The debate comes after my constituents Jenny Morrison and Diane Mayhew established their Rights For Residents campaign group in 2020.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Jenny contacted me to tell me what was she was going through. She couldn’t visit her Mum, sit and chat in person with her or hold her hand. Instead she watched her Mum “deteriorate from a distance via Skype calls that left her confused and distressed”. Her Mum sadly passed away last year, leaving Jenny with an unbearable legacy of guilt.

She and Diane were not alone in having to watch elderly relatives left without access to their relatives. They sought to turn their terrible experience into something much more positive in campaigning for change, because two years on these policies are still in place in many care homes. The harm from these policies continues, with one in five Covid outbreaks seeing residents confined to their rooms and one in nine outbreaks seeing no visitors allowed at all. Blanket visiting restrictions are still in place in many care homes even though there is now no necessity for any such restrictions.

I asked for a law that would give residents in care homes a legal right be accompanied by at least on relative in the future. You can see my contribution to the debate above.