CARE homes in North Yorkshire will reopen for visiting in person from Sunday.

A designated visitor for each resident will be allowed to visit in person, subject to Covid safety guidelines. In homes where there are outbreaks, however, current restrictions will remain in place.

In September, North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) issued advice to care providers to stop in-person visits to combat rising infection rates in the community increasing the risks to care home residents.

Public Health and adult social care teams have been working closely with care providers and health colleagues for the last few months to understand the risks of the second wave of Covid-19 - and how people can remain safe now and throughout the winter.

This includes daily contact with care homes across North Yorkshire and a weekly meeting for all care providers to share experiences and ideas.

Throughout October, a task group consisting of younger and older people who live in care, parents and children of people who live in care, dementia advocates and care providers came together to share with NYCC how the restrictions on visiting affected them and to develop ideas as to how these issues could be addressed.

Richard Webb, NYCC's corporate director for health and adult services, said: “I would like to thank the task group for sharing their experiences and recommendations – their work has been invaluable and will help many people in the county in the weeks and months to come.

“We will be working through all the recommendations: some can be adopted immediately and others will need some further work to ensure they can be implemented well.

“It’s also worth noting that, although North Yorkshire is currently still in Tier 1, if part, or all, of the county move into a higher level of restrictions at any point, then decisions about visiting may be beyond our control.

"However, I have already alerted Public Health England that we would like to see a more flexible approach to care home keeping in touch arrangements than the current Level 2 and Level 3 restrictions allow.

“I would encourage us all as a community to do all we can to keep the transmission rates down. Preventing the spread of the virus, helps us all and, in particular, people who live in care. So, let’s all try to minimise the number of people we all mix with, especially at home. And please remember that 'hands, face, space' makes a big difference: hand washing, wearing face coverings and maintaining social distancing over two metres.”