A Bridport care home has worked really hard to ensure its residents can still see family members.

The team at Harbour House in West Bay has worked with local builder Chris Pike to create an indoor visiting pod for residents and their essential family contact (EFC).

According to government guidelines, there should ideally be one EFC per resident to keep the risk of infection as low as possible. Those who are designated as EFCs have joined Harbour House's weekly testing regime to lower the risk of infection as much as possible.

Anna Knight, registered manager at Harbour House, said: "In order to provide a safe visiting space, we have had to create two separate entrances, floor to ceiling Perspex, ventilation, handwashing facilities, PPE available, Harbour House QR codes and to help everyone, we have fitted a continuous intercom system.

"The administration of this is challenging as we have our own track and trace system in place, a booking system, a maximum visit time and then a deep clean after each visit. This takes considerable time and requires patience for families, residents and the staff team, but between us all, we are determined to make it work.

"In the past few weeks, we have had a family member move into Harbour House to ensure that she had an intensive period of time with her husband and we have also encouraged as many of our residents as we can to go back to their families' homes for Christmas. This can be managed safely and sensitively and enable residents and their loved ones to spend quality time together."

The team at Harbour House is also eagerly awaiting the outcome from the care home rapid testing pilot taking place at homes in Devon, Cornwall and Hants, in the hope Harbour House can follow shortly.

Anna added: "A 25-minute rapid test would make a dramatic difference to all our residents, families, staff and friends and help us to return to some form of 'normal'."