families campaigning to see more of
their relatives in care homes say
changes to government guidance on
visiting don't go far enough
john's campaign a group representing
families of people with dementia
say they plan to go ahead with legal
action claiming they breach
human rights in lower risk areas
residents can usually have one visitor
but in higher risk areas the advice is
that visits should only happen
in exceptional circumstances the
government says its priority is keeping
residents safe
allison holt has been speaking to those
affected
the handful of times i've been able to
go mums got really upset
and said why don't you come in you're
getting wet and i can't go on like this
nobody wants me and
why don't i just drop dead it's horrible
horrible this is the heartache behind
the planned legal action
she just couldn't understand why we
couldn't go in she just
said why have you dumped me here they
don't look after me
you know um she was just desperate
families divided by months of tight
restrictions on care home visits
it's my beliefs that she died thinking
that
nobody loved her anymore
[Music]
carol tennant's mum jean moved to a care
home just before lockdown
they went from spending a lot of time
together to a few visits through a
window or in the garden
the 89 year old deteriorated rapidly and
died in september
i've got no no problem with the home
they did a really really good job they
kept covered out
um but
at what cost and i don't mean the home i
mean
across the country at what cost after so
many covert related deaths in care homes
government guidance and local
restrictions are there to protect
residents
but sheila brown was moved to a nursing
home knowing she was nearing the end of
her life
when somebody's on an end of life care
pathway
the things that matter to them are
family
quality of life not quantity of life
for months families have been saying
rather than only being able to see their
relatives through windows or in gardens
they should be given key workers status
with access to testing
and ppe margaret johnson has dementia
and key workers status would allow her
daughter to spend
much more precious time with her the
people trying to get into care homes to
see their loved ones
are going to be careful they're not the
kind of people who are going to go to a
rave
are going to have a house party with 100
people in
you know they're people who care about
their their found their families
the government says it will pilot key
worker status to try to give families
more time with relatives
but it's not clear when that will happen
alison holt
bbc news the uk is set to become
the first country in the world to
deliberately infect volunteers with
coronavirus to speed up the race to get
a vaccine
healthy volunteers under the age of 30
will be paid to take part in the human
challenge
trials and they'll be monitored for side
effects for up to a year
our medical editor fergus walsh reports
estefania wants to be deliberately
infected with coronavirus
all in the name of science she's part of
one day sooner a group which is
campaigning for so-called
challenge trials for a young healthy
person
the probabilities of me dying or
anything is very very low
and so when i think about what society
gains by getting a vaccine sooner
i'm not that worried about the risks
thousands of people
like edward are part of covid vaccine
trials
but it could be months before we know
whether the jab protects them
against coronavirus in a challenge
trial volunteers are immunized and then
infected with the virus so it's clear
straight away
if the vaccine works scientists need to
know
how much coronavirus is required to
ensure that the volunteers
get infected so the first people on the
trials
won't get a vaccine they'll simply get a
predetermined dose
of coronavirus now amazingly
there are thousands of people ready to
sign up for this sort of thing
after two weeks they will spend in here
so they'll be closely monitored
those taking part will need to be aged
between 18 and 30
and are likely to receive around 4 000
pounds
but what about the potential dangers of
getting covid19
so we're only going to be inoculating
people who have the
very lowest potential risk for a severe
outcome
the trial has been designed that they
will have
very minimal disease potentially not
even any symptoms
gary is a challenged trial veteran
he's had malaria as part of one study
and this is him drinking a solution
laced with
typhoid bacteria the experimental
typhoid vaccine he was trialing
worked and is now saving lives really
the confirmation that
you really were part of something which
really
made a huge difference um to lives
around the world you know
we're talking hundreds of thousands of
people that can now benefit from a
typhoid
vaccine but yeah that was pretty
fantastic
the world owes a debt of gratitude to
all medical volunteers
but especially those ready to get a
disease
challenge studies don't replace
conventional
trials but they might just speed up the
process
of finding out which coronavirus
vaccines
work best fergus walsh bbc news