Changes to visitor restrictions

Visits to aged care are permitted in the following circumstances:

• One household (up to 5 people) may visit a resident once per day for a maximum of one hour for any reason.
• Support visits: person provides emotional, cultural, spiritual or social support. Limit: one visitor, once per day for one hour.
• Density limits (2 square meter rule) also apply to communal spaces that visitors access, but not to resident's own rooms.
• essential care necessary for the resident's wellbeing, including includes mental health support, or assistance with daily activities like eating meals, and must be to optimise the care and support delivered by workers at the facility. Limit: one visitor at any one time (no time limit).
• behavioural support to manage individual behaviours of concern, such as for people living with dementia, cognitive impairment or cognitive disability, or who have a known or emergingserious mental illness. Limit: one visitor at any one time.
• Interpreters or informal language support to enable the delivery of care by workers at the facility. Limit: one visitor at any time.
• End of life support where the death of a resident is expected within days (periods up to 14 days) or where the resident is at risk of dying from a sudden acute event. Limit: two visitors at any one time.
• Family (including kindship) of a resident who is a minor. Limit: one person at any time.

Residents leaving RACFs

Residents can leave their care facility for any reason, provided they comply with current restrictions in Victoria.

When residents leave the facility, they should be reminded of the current restrictions, including:

• wearing a fitted face mask indoors, and when you cannot maintain 1.5m distance outdoors. This means carrying a mask with you at all times.
• physical distancing (staying 1.5m from others)
• limits on private and public gatherings
• not seeing people who are quarantining, isolating or otherwise unwell.

For more information on when a person is required to wear a face mask, please visit the Face masks webpage.

Residents should not be confined to their rooms nor should the facility be in lockdown.

Returning to the RACF

Residents should be screened upon their return, for example, having their temperature checked. Residents do not need to be isolated upon their return except on specific advice from the Department of Health.