Care home residents in England and Wales will be allowed one regular indoor visitor from 8 March under plans to ease lockdown restrictions.
Visitors - who will be allowed to hold hands with their loved ones - will be required to wear PPE and have a COVID-19 test before entry.
In Scotland, care home residents will be allowed to receive two named visitors, once a week.
Health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, said: ‘I know how important visiting a loved one is and I’m pleased we will soon be in a position for people to be carefully and safely reunited with loved ones who live in care homes.
’This is just the first step to getting back to where we want to be. We need to make sure we keep the infection rate down, to allow greater visiting in a step-by-step way in the future.’
Vic Rayner, executive director of the National Care Forum, said: 'NCF will continue to support our membership in moving as quickly as possible to implement these changes, and we call on the government to work with the sector to ensure that homes have all the support and resource needed to make this a reality for the hundreds and thousands of people living within care.'
