Visiting Update for homes in Greater Glasgow and Clyde

We ask families of residents in our Care Homes in Greater Glasgow and Clyde to read the below update we have received from the Director Of Public Health, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

The purpose of this note is to confirm and clarify the current position on friends and family visiting to care homes in Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

At present, all local authority areas in GGC are at Coronavirus levels 2 or 3. In view of that, the following forms of friends and family visits to care homes may currently take place at care homes in GGC:

  1. Essential visits.
  2. Garden visits with 6 max people from no more than 2 different households 60 minutes once a week.
  3. Window visits.
  4. Indoor visits with one designated person for up to four hours once a week.

These visits are conditional upon the following:

  • Other than essential visits, friends and family visiting is limited to care homes that do not have an outbreak of COVID-19. In any care home with an outbreak, non-essential visiting should be suspended until further instruction from the Public Health Protection Unit. Normally this would last until 14 days from last date of COVID symptoms.
  • A risk assessment and visiting protocol should be in place and have been signed off by public health. These documents must have been updated to cover each form of visiting that the care home intends to allow (eg indoor visiting can only occur if the documents cover indoor visiting).
  • All other conditions set out in the Scottish Government care homes visiting guidance have been met (eg care homes should be fully participating in resident and staff testing programmes and in the use of the Safety Huddle Tool).

Should any local authority in GGC move to level 4, then further restrictions on visiting to care homes in the affected local authority area are likely to be applied at that time.

Please refer to the Scottish Government care homes visiting guidance for further detail, including guidance for the Christmas and New Year period. Specific advice on the interpretation and application of this guidance is available from the Public Health Protection Unit if needed.