VETERANS living at the Royal Star and Garter care home will be able to meet loved ones inside thanks to a generous donation.
The Monkspath Hall Road care home has been forced to stop visitors from entering the home during the pandemic but thanks to a £100,000 donation a COVID-secure indoor meeting room has been built for families to spend some much needed time together.
This room meets new guidelines set out by Government to allow relatives to continue safely visiting their loved ones throughout the winter months.
The Royal Star and Garter, which cares for veterans living with disability or dementia, has been given the green light to use the two specially-dedicated rooms in Solihull and started welcoming visitors on Monday (November 16).
The new rooms will allow up to two visitors per resident without supervision.
Residents and relatives will enter from different entrances, and be partitioned by a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass.
The rooms have a homely feel to them, with the grant also covering furnishings and high-tech sound systems to allow for a more natural conversation, and to help those that are hard of hearing.
The rooms will be thoroughly cleaned after each visit.
The funds came from Scheinberg Relief Fund, a $50m philanthropic fund established by businessman and philanthropist Mark Scheinberg, together with his family, in March 2020 to help tackle the direct impact of Covid-19.
The home is also looking to invest further in rapid tests and more visiting spaces, as part of its strategy to allow visits to take place safely over winter and beyond.
The home is one of over 60 organisations representing relatives, carers and providers to sign up to the Visiting Care Homes campaign organised by the National Care Forum (NCF) – and supports the call for designated ‘key worker’ status for family members, providing them with regular testing so safe visits can happen inside care homes.
Chief executive Andy Cole said “We are so pleased that our residents will be able to benefit from continued visits from their loved ones.
“However, this is still not sufficient for some residents and we fully support the NCF’s campaign in calling for rapid testing in care homes, and for relatives to be given key worker status.
“Much more needs to be done to prevent hundreds of thousands of care home residents across the country being isolated from their families.
“We know how much time with family boosts residents’ well-being and morale, and we’re delighted that visits will continue thanks to the generous support of Scheinberg Relief Fund.
“It will mean the world to our residents and their families.”
