Care Shield Compliance Press Desk

Every resident in Scotland needs a named care supporter

Since 31 March 2026 every care home resident in Scotland can name an Essential Care Supporter, and suspending one now carries a legal presumption of serious harm.

By the Care Shield Compliance Press Desk··3 min read·Scotland

Every resident in a Scottish care home must be able to name at least one Essential Care Supporter, and that person's access is now protected in law rather than by policy. If your visiting policy still reads as something you grant, it needs rewriting. The regulations came into force on 31 March 2026.

What the regulations require

The Care Home Services (Visits to and by Care Home Residents) (Scotland) Regulations 2026, SSI 2026/166, were made on 18 March 2026 and came into force on 31 March 2026. They are made under the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 and are the delivery vehicle for what the sector has called Anne's Law. The full text is on legislation.gov.uk.

Three things follow directly.

First, each resident is entitled to at least one named Essential Care Supporter. This is not a visitor in the old sense. It is a named person with a recognised role in the resident's care and wellbeing.

Second, the entitlement covers visits in and visits out. A resident going out with their Essential Care Supporter is part of the same protected relationship, not a separate favour requiring separate justification.

Third, suspension is exceptional. You may only suspend where there is reasonable cause to believe suspension is essential to prevent a serious risk. That is a high threshold and it is worded to be one.

Suspension is now a documented, notifiable act

A suspension is reviewable on written request. It must be notified to the Care Inspectorate and to the local authority Chief Social Work Officer. In other words, a decision that used to sit inside a home's own management now travels outward to two external bodies on the day you make it.

The accompanying code of practice, published on 23 March 2026, goes further. It creates a legal presumption that suspending an Essential Care Supporter causes serious harm. Read that carefully. The starting point is that your action harms the resident, and the burden sits with you to show the risk you were preventing was greater. The code is published by the Scottish Government.

What this means for you

  • Check that every current resident has at least one named Essential Care Supporter recorded, with the record showing who nominated them and when. A blank field is a compliance gap, not an administrative one.
  • Rewrite your visiting policy so it distinguishes Essential Care Supporters from general visitors, and so it covers visits out as explicitly as visits in.
  • Build a suspension procedure with the notification steps baked in: who decides, what evidence is recorded, who notifies the Care Inspectorate, who notifies the Chief Social Work Officer, and how a written review request is handled and within what timescale.
  • Train your senior on-call staff specifically. Suspensions tend to be made out of hours by whoever is holding the phone, and that is exactly when the presumption of serious harm will be forgotten.
  • Audit any suspension you have applied since 31 March 2026. If it was not notified, notify now and record why the delay occurred.
  • Add Essential Care Supporter arrangements to your admission process, so a new resident is not without one for their first fortnight.

The cultural shift matters more than the paperwork. The regulations move the default from restrict-then-justify to permit-unless-justified, and inspection will follow the default.

Where this came from

SSI 2026/166 on legislation.gov.uk and the Anne's Law code of practice published by the Scottish Government.

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Sources

  1. Care Home Services (Visits to and by Care Home Residents) (Scotland) Regulations 2026 — legislation.gov.uk
  2. Anne's Law: code of practice — Scottish Government

Questions people ask about this

Can a resident name more than one Essential Care Supporter?

The regulations require at least one named Essential Care Supporter per resident, so one is the floor rather than the ceiling. Record who has been named, and make sure the nomination reflects the resident's own wishes wherever they can express them, involving their representative where they cannot.

What do we have to do if we suspend a supporter?

You need reasonable cause to believe the suspension is essential to prevent a serious risk. The suspension is reviewable on written request, and it must be notified to the Care Inspectorate and to the local authority Chief Social Work Officer. The code of practice presumes suspension causes serious harm, so record your reasoning fully.

Does this cover taking a resident out of the home?

Yes. The regulations cover visits to and by care home residents, meaning visits out as well as visits in. Treating an outing as a separate discretionary decision, subject to a different approval route, does not sit well with the entitlement or with the code of practice behind it.

How this was written. Care Shield’s press desk drafts from primary sources — the statute book, regulator publications and government announcements — and publishes automatically once every factual claim traces to a named source. The sources are listed above so you can check them. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for reading the regulation that applies to your service. If you find something wrong, tell us at hello@careshieldcompliance.co.uk and we will correct it in public, on this page.

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