Is it legal for a cafe in sheltered accommodation to ban relatives from eating there with their family member now restrictions are eased?
In the UK, legal restrictions on gatherings and support bubbles were supposedly lifted on 19th July, but my mother's AL/sheltered accommodation today refused to let my son and daughter-in-law and their baby come with us to eat in the on-site restaurant with Mum. They claim this is to protect the residents - who are of course perfectly free to go out and catch COVID anywhere else, including at our house.
It seems that the reasoning behind this may be to protect the company's reputation rather than the residents' well-being, as many of them have suffered mentally and emotionally from being deprived of family contact for so long, but all the management care about is that no one there died of the virus.
I just wondered whether they have an actual legal right to do this...
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Can your relatives take your Mom out of her complex and then anywhere of their choosing?
I would expect that when your mum was admitted, you (or another family member) signed some type of lengthy (non-binding) contract acknowledging that they have rules (that may change any time) and you will adhere to them.
Unfortunately, when you signed your mom in, you gave up some rights (but also you gave up some responsibilities that you no longer wanted).
if you want a different arrangement snd different rules, take her to live with you.
This was not about my rights but about the peculiarity and lack of logic of the current UK COVID guidelines - sorry if that wasn't clear.
I will just repeat that we *did* take her to eat with us - where she still might have caught COVID.
I went through hell for months when my LO was the innocent victim of TWO Covid infections.
That I can go and joke with her and take her flowers and talk about anything that occurs to her is the greatest Blessing I can think of, and I’m a victim of my own Covid infection, so I do know how bad it was to have it.
We all have our own reactions to this awful situation, and we all have to try and understand that MANY have suffered.
I should just add that this cafe is also open to the public, who are asked to sit at separate tables but not to prove their vaccination status.
I just can't believe this post: in the other corner, I present the hundreds of outraged families who are up in arms because social care companies *aren't* doing enough to protect their vulnerable loved ones. Any residential care organisation that had *no* deaths from Covid 19 is making no idle boast, let me tell you. You should be nothing but glad that your mother was so fortunate in her choice of provider, and you should also cease to think it a coincidence or a matter of PR that their policy remains comparatively strict.
Has everyone in the family had both jabs? I expect that before long the managers will agree to allow any visitors who can show certification (readily available through the NHS app). You've given them four days.
My mother's nursing home is still fairly locked down in that we can't visit our loved ones in the common room where we once visited. We have to either visit in her room (easy, as she's bedridden now), or in one of two private rooms set aside for visiting. Visits in those rooms are limited to 30 minutes, but I stay as long as I want in my mother's room.
I don't understand the rules where residents are allowed to leave and go anywhere but families can't come in, but I know that's the rule in a couple of friends' parents' assisted living places. One friend has a dad whose A/L throughout the pandemic allowed him to go play golf with a foursome of strangers, but told him he couldn't go to his daughter's house for a weekly Sunday dinner without being quarantined for 10 days after. He just signed out each week to "play golf," then went to his daughter's house to spend the day there. They never questioned him.
If enough families make a stink about it, you might get somewhere, but unfortunately, the A/L is probably following some nursing home regulating agency's rules and not the government's general opening rules.