Golspie care home buys pop-up pods to make lockdown visits more comfortable

Lockdown has been particularly hard for care home residents and their families and friends.

Visitors have been unable to go into homes or have close contact with their loved ones.

Instead, they have been reduced to standing outside residents’ bedroom windows in the hope of seeing them and perhaps having a shouted conversation.

With the onset of winter, it has meant relatives being out in the ice and snow.

Now staff at a Sutherland care home for the elderly have come up with a novel way of making sure visitors are comfortable while still observing lockdown restrictions.

Golspie’s Seaforth House, which is run by NHS Highland and cares for up to 15 residents, has bought three ‘pop-up’ pods, one for each wing of the home.

The pods can quickly be put in place and provide shelter for relatives from the weather.

A £400 grant for the purchase was secured from Kilbraur Community Wind Farm Benefit Fund.

There was enough money left over after buying the pods to pay for some paint which will be used to spruce up outside benches.

Seaforth House staff member Tracey Campbell, a social care worker, said: “The pods are quite warm and cosy and keep out the rain and the wind.

“We put a chair inside the pod so visitors don’t need to stand all the time. In better weather, the sides come down. Everyone is very pleased with them.”

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