West Yorkshire care home builds Covid-safe sealed ‘visiting pod’ to reunite families and elderly residents

Vicarage Court Care Home in Pontefract has built the fully sealed pod to allow families to visit and talk to each other using a perspex screen.

Residents helped to decorate the pod, which families can visit for scheduled 30-minute slots, with time allowed between each visit for full sanitising of the pod with chlorine in between.

The Director of Vicarage Court Care Homes, Jagjit Singh, said: “It’s vital to keep elderly people motivated to keep themselves going, and we can put as many activities as we want on to keep them generally smiling and happy but for them to see their loved ones is different.

“We were noticing the impact on the mental health of residents and families by visits not being allowed and so we tried to think of the best way of solving this problem.

“We’ve had so many messages and questions from other care homes asking how we built this and so we’re sharing the idea with them all to help everyone through this tough time.

“I think the amount of shares and views we’ve had on Facebook shows how much this was needed.”

This is the first of two visiting pods which the care home will house, with another being built on the second floor to allow for more family visits at one time.

The care home had been setting up 10 to 12 zoom call visits a day with families and will continue to do so for those who cannot make it to the care home.

Mr Singh added: “A lot of people have sheds with perspex screens but we do not believe it is safe to take the elderly into the cold in winter months.

“Also more elderly people sadly pass away in the winter months so the key is to motivate and stimulate them and we really think this can work.”

Vicarage Court Care Home is a nursing and residential home with care also available for the young and physically disabled, people with dementia and they also offer palliative care.