Campaigners: Why are care homes still not letting families visit?

A campaign group for care home residents and their families say they are taking their petition to Downing Street. 

'Rights For Residents' - founded by two Liverpool women - say Government rules on regular family visits aren't mandatory - which means that a lot of care homes aren't introducing them and many people are being kept from loved ones.

Jenny Morrison told ITV Granada Reports:

"We're working with Harriet Harman and Liz Kendall and also, we are supported a huge number of MPs across the board. What we'd like, is our rights as essential family carers, to be enshrined in law, so that care homes are forced to allow family members -at least one family member in - during pandemics, outbreaks, future strains etc...Because basically, we offer an essential component in the care of our loved ones, which is the emotional care. And they've been without that now for over a year. And if we wait for care homes to make these decisions they may well never open.

"So we have a petition, which has already been signed by 220,000 people and we will be delivering that to Downing Street in the next two weeks. And what we're asking the Government for is, as things open up, please don't treat care home residents as second-hand citizens, please give them some of the same freedoms that everybody else will be enjoying this Summer."

* Click here to find the petition

On Saturday, it was announced that care home residents will be allowed visits from young children in their families for the first time in months, when England takes its next step out of Covid lockdown.

From April 12, restrictions on care home visits will be relaxed, allowing residents two regular visitors, rather than just one, and children will also be allowed to attend.

Infants and children are not counted as one of the two visitors, the government has announced.

* Covid: England care home residents allowed two visitors plus children from mid-April