What is Anne’s Law?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, emergency legislation was invoked and guidance was issued by Scottish Ministers which prevented many care home operators from allowing visitors, aiming to reduce the risk of spreading the virus among elderly, vulnerable care home residents. Anne’s Law began as a petition by the family member of a care home resident who was unable to visit her relative prior to her death in a care home during the pandemic, and aims to prevent this from happening again.
It requires care home operators to allow and support visits to and from care home residents, unless doing so would cause a serious risk to someone’s life, health or wellbeing. The regulations will apply at all times, meaning even in the case of smaller scale outbreaks, such as the flu.
Anne’s Law is enshrined in the draft Care Home Services (Visits to and by Care Home Residents) (Scotland) Regulations 2026, which were approved by Scottish Ministers on 4 March 2026 and will take effect from 31 March 2026. The regulations support the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, which became law on 22 July 2025.
The regulations are split into different sections, which we will summarise below, and must be read alongside the code of practice on care home residents’ right to visits.
Essential Care Supporters – Regulation 2
Anne’s Law requires that providers of adult care services in Scotland must identify at least one ‘Essential Care Supporter’ (ECS) for every resident. More than one ECS can be identified per resident. The ECS will be named on the resident’s care plan and given priority access for visits, unless doing so would be contrary to the resident’s wishes, or no-one is able or willing to be the ECS.
The regulations contain criteria which must be considered when identifying a suitable ECS. In practice, this will usually be a friend or family member of the resident and the resident or their representative should be consulted on who the ECS will be. Essential Care Supporters will however be presumed as ‘essential visitors’ even in times when visiting is suspended (see below).
Right to visits (generally) – Regulation 3
Care home providers must facilitate visits to residents within the care home (internal visits) and visits from residents away from the care home – for example, to the house of a family member (external visits).
The obligation to facilitate external visits does not require the care provider to take or accompany the resident to the external visit, or to pay for or arrange the visit.
Suspension of visiting – Regulation 4
Adult care home providers can suspend visits (either to and from all residents, or to and from specific residents) in very limited circumstances.
Internal visits can only be suspended if the provider has cause to believe that it is essential to prevent serious risk to the life, health or wellbeing of any person at the care home.
External visits can be suspended if the provider has cause to believe it is essential to prevent serious risk to the life, health or wellbeing of any person (including the resident, another resident, or someone else at the location where the external visit is due to take place).
Even if the care home provider can lawfully suspend visits in accordance with Anne’s Law, they must still facilitate ‘essential visits’ – see below.
Essential visits
Anne’s Law requires that even if internal or external visits have been lawfully suspended by a care home provider (see above), the operator must continue to facilitate internal and external visits – to and from residents – if the visit is considered ‘essential’.
A visit will be considered essential if the provider has reasonable cause to believe that either of the following apply:
- before the suspension of visits is lifted, the resident will have either died or have undergone (or will begin to undergo) a significant physical or mental deterioration
- the suspension on visits is causing, or likely to cause, serious harm to the resident’s health or wellbeing, and that harm outweighs the serious risk which justified the suspension –Essential Care Supporters are presumed to satisfy this provision
If either of the above applies, and the resident and their visitor (or the person they are visiting) have agreed to take actions or precautions identified by the care home provider to mitigate the serious risk which justified the suspension of visits, providers must continue to facilitate visits.
Review of decision to suspend visiting – Regulation 6
Where a care home provider has decided to suspend visits to and from residents in accordance with Regulation 4, they must review that decision if they receive a written request for a visit (or for visits to recommence on one of the following grounds:
- that a visit should be facilitated because one of the two situations described in Regulation 5 applies, meaning the visit should be considered ‘essential’ (see above and below)
- that there has otherwise been a failure to comply with the code of practice on the suspension of visits
- that there has been a change of circumstances which requires a review of the decision to suspend visits
Notification of decision to suspend visiting – Regulation 7
If an adult care home provider has suspended visits in accordance with Regulation 4 (above), they must notify the following people as soon as is practicable:
- any resident (or their representative) who is affected, and their Essential Care Supporter
- Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland
- the chief social work officer of the local authority where the care home is located
