In line with the general easing of lockdown restrictions across the country, Balhousie is delighted to announce the return of out-of-home family visiting for our residents. Following a successful trial among residents and relatives of our Brookfield care home, from Monday April 26 residents across all of our homes will be able to take trips with loved ones to outdoor destinations.

  • Residents can meet up to six people from six households, in keeping with the Scottish Government’s general regulations covering outdoor socialising. Please note the resident accounts for one household;
  • Out-of-home visits can take place up to twice a week;
  • The person picking up the resident should be a designated visitor and will be required to test negative in an on-the-spot COVID-19 test;
  • There is no restriction on the length of the out-of-home visit nor a requirement to book it online. Instead, relatives/designated visitors should make their request directly with the care home. We ask that help our care home teams by giving them sufficient notice of a visit.
  • We request that relatives/friends follow government guidelines on social distancing and infection prevention and control in order to ensure the safety of both our residents and their visitors.
  • We will continue to offer indoor visits from two separate nominated visitors up to twice a week, as well as garden and window visits of up to two people per resident, from two different households.

At the same time, and in accordance with the Scottish government’s latest guidelines on care homes, we ask that indoor and garden visitors to our homes wear short-sleeved clothing to keep forearms bare and less prone to contamination.  We will be adapting our visiting gowns to accommodate this.

We are excited to be adding the out-of-home visiting option for our residents and we know they and their relatives/friends will benefit enormously from it.  The feedback we have from our Brookfield residents and relatives has been extremely positive.  That said, some of our relatives have expressed nervousness about taking their loved ones away from the care home environment while the virus is still in our communities.  If you share these concerns, please do not hesitate to talk this through with your Home Manager.  Further information and tips are available on the Relatives’ section of our website: https://balhousiecare.co.uk/coronavirus-faqs/

Yours sincerely

Sheilah Harvey

Head of Operations