Question reference: S5W-34444
- Asked by: James Kelly, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
- Date lodged: 11 January 2021
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Current status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 20 January 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government when all care homes will have access to COVID-19 visitor testing.
Answer
The Scottish Government has rolled out rapid testing in care homes to support essential visits, supplying all adult care homes in Scotland with Lateral Flow Devices.
Currently all of mainland Scotland and the islands of Barra and Vatersay are in COVID protection Level 4 with Orkney, Shetland, the rest of the Western Isles and the more remote islands in Argyll and Bute and Highland in Level 3.
For areas in Level 4, only essential visits are now recommended to take place in care homes, alongside window and garden visits, if Directors of Public Health judge this to be safe.
Essential visits include circumstances where there is a concern that the resident’s health and wellbeing is changing for the worse, where visiting may help with communication difficulties, to ease significant personal stress or other pressing circumstances, such as a concern that the resident may be approaching end of life.