Anne’s Law Comes Into Force: Scotland Enshrines the Right to Visit in Law

Scotland’s care sector faces one of its most significant legal changes in a generation as Anne’s Law — named after a care home resident whose family were denied access to her during the COVID-19 pandemic — moves from guidance into statute.

The Care Home Services (Visits to and by Care Home Residents) (Scotland) Regulations 2026 were approved unanimously by the Scottish Parliament on 4 March 2026 and come into force on 31 March 2026.

The regulations sit beneath the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, which itself became law on 22 July 2025, and must be read alongside a new statutory code of practice on care home residents’ right to visits. Together they represent the culmination of a campaign that began with a single family’s experience at the height of the pandemic and has steadily gathered national political and public momentum ever since.

The Story Behind the Law

Anne’s Law takes its name from Anne Duke, whose daughter Natasha Hamilton launched a petition to the Scottish Parliament during the public health emergency after she was unable to gain access to her mother’s care home. Anne Duke died without the family contact that Ms Hamilton had fought to restore. That petition ignited a movement that, over four years, has reshaped Scottish social care policy.

The foundations were laid progressively: updated guidance, then strengthened Health and Social Care Standards in 2022 which created a Care Inspectorate expectation that visiting be supported even during outbreaks of infectious disease.

The Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 placed the principle on a fully statutory footing, and the March 2026 regulations provide the detailed legal machinery that operators must now follow.

Tom Arthur, Social Care Minister, Scottish Government said: “These regulations enshrine the right to direct contact in law and recognise the vital role family, friends and others play in providing essential care, support and companionship to loved ones in adult care homes.”

The regulations are structured across  key provisions:

Regulation 2 — Essential Care Supporters

• Every adult care home resident in Scotland must now have at least one named ‘Essential Care Supporter’ (ECS) recorded in their personal care plan. More than one ECS may be identified. The ECS is to be given priority access to visits and will typically be a close family member or trusted friend, identified through consultation with the resident or, where the resident lacks capacity, their representative.
• Critically, ECS status carries a legal presumption: any suspension of an ECS’s visits will be considered likely to cause serious harm to the resident’s health and wellbeing. In practice, this creates a very high bar for operators wishing to restrict ECS access.

Regulation 3 — General Right to Visits

• Operators are required to facilitate both internal visits (within the care home) and external visits (a resident leaving the home to visit family, for example). The obligation to facilitate external visits does not, however, require the care home to transport, accompany or fund those visits — it is a duty to enable and support, not to arrange.

Regulation 4 — Suspension of Visiting

• Visiting may only be suspended in very limited circumstances. Internal visits can be suspended only where the operator has cause to believe it is essential to prevent a serious risk to the life, health or wellbeing of any person at the care home. External visits face a similarly high threshold, with the risk extended to persons at the destination as well as the resident.
• The regulations apply at all times — not only during formal national public health emergencies but also during more localised outbreaks, such as seasonal influenza or norovirus.

Regulation 5 — Essential Visits That Must Continue Even Under Suspension

• Even where a lawful suspension is in place, providers must continue to facilitate what the regulations define as ‘essential visits’. A visit is essential if the provider has reasonable cause to believe that either: the resident will have died, or have undergone significant physical or mental deterioration, before the suspension is lifted; or the suspension is causing, or is likely to cause, serious harm to the resident’s health or wellbeing that outweighs the risk justifying the suspension.
• ECS visits are explicitly presumed to meet this essential threshold. Where a visit is deemed essential, and the resident and their visitor agree to undertake precautions identified by the provider to mitigate risk, the visit must go ahead.

Regulations 6 & 7 — Review and Notification

• Where visits are suspended, operators must carry out a formal review if they receive a written request. Grounds for review include: a visit being considered essential under Regulation 5; a failure to comply with the code of practice; or a material change in circumstances. Separately, providers must notify affected residents or their representatives, their ECS, the Care Inspectorate (Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland), and the chief social work officer of the relevant local authority as soon as is practicable after a suspension decision is made.

The regulations passed with unanimous parliamentary support and have been broadly welcomed across Scotland’s care sector, though providers have been reminded of the operational preparation required before 31 March.

Cathie Russell, Care Home Relatives Scotland said: “This law ensures that the damage caused by isolating residents from their loved ones and the importance of recognising residents as members of society is always taken into account.”

Natasha Hamilton, whose original petition set this journey in motion, was closely involved in the development of the legislation, a point acknowledged by Social Care Minister Tom Arthur in his statement to Parliament.

For care home operators across Scotland, the immediate priority is compliance. Legal advisers have highlighted several steps that should either already be complete or under active review as the 31 March date arrives:

• Review and update all visiting policies to reflect the new legal framework.
• Begin identifying Essential Care Supporters for every adult resident, through conversations with residents and their families.
• Ensure that ECS designations are formally recorded within individual care plans.
• Establish clear internal procedures for suspension decisions, including the written review process and notification obligations.
• Familiarise management and frontline staff with both the regulations and the accompanying statutory code of practice.

The Care Inspectorate has confirmed that it will consider compliance with Anne’s Law when registering, inspecting and supporting care homes and has published resources including a self-evaluation tool and factsheet to support homes in implementing the new standards.