Part 5

Social care and social work: scrutiny and improvement
Chapter 3

Care services

Regulations under section 78: visits to and by adult care home residents

Right to visits: care home residents
78C
1
The Scottish Ministers must exercise the power under section 78(2) to impose a duty on providers of care home services for adults to facilitate visits—
a
to residents of accommodation provided by the care home service (“internal visits”),
b
by residents of accommodation provided by the care home service (“external visits”).
2
The duty must be framed so that a provider of a care home service may only suspend visits (specifically or generally) if the provider has reasonable cause to believe that it is essential to do so to prevent a serious risk to the life, health or wellbeing of—
a
in the case of internal visits, persons at the accommodation,
b
in the case of external visits (either or both)—
i
persons at the accommodation, or
ii
persons at the place where the visit would take place, but for the suspension.
3
The duty must also be framed so that, where a provider of a care home service has suspended visits due to a serious risk of a kind described in subsection (2), the provider must take all reasonable steps to eliminate or substantially mitigate the risk so that the suspension of visits can be lifted as soon as practicable.
4
The duty must also be framed so that, even in cases where a provider of a care home service has reasonable cause to believe that suspending visits is essential to prevent a serious risk, the provider must continue to facilitate visits to or by a resident if—
a
either—
i
the provider has reasonable cause to believe that, before the suspension of visits is lifted, the resident will have—
A
died, or
B
undergone, or begun to undergo, a significant deterioration in physical or mental condition, or
ii
the provider has reasonable cause to believe that—
A
the suspension of visits is causing, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the resident’s health or wellbeing, and
B
that harm outweighs the serious risk, and
b
the resident and the person visiting, or being visited by, the resident agree to take any action or precaution that the provider reasonably considers would mitigate the serious risk to any extent (other than a negligible one).
5
The duty must also be framed so as to create a presumption that the suspension of visits to a resident by the resident’s Essential Care Supporter is likely to cause serious harm to the resident’s health or wellbeing.
6
Subsection (4) does not preclude the duty from being framed so as to include other circumstances in which visits to or by a resident must continue to be facilitated.
7
The duty must also be framed so that a provider of a care home service must have regard to the code published under section 78E in carrying out the duty.
8
Facilitating external visits, as mentioned in subsection (1), does not entail a provider of a care home service—
a
taking, or accompanying, a resident somewhere outwith accommodation provided by the care home service, or
b
arranging or paying for someone else to do so.
Ss. 78B-78G and cross-heading inserted (7.1.2026 for specified purposes) by Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 (asp 9), ss. 14(2), 39(2); S.S.I. 2025/388, reg. 2(1)(2), sch. Pt. 1