Anne's Law draft regulations: consultation report

Introduction

Background to Anne’s Law

Anne’s Law was developed following the experiences of care home residents and their families and friends during the COVID-19 pandemic, when restrictions on care home visits had a significant impact on health and wellbeing. In response, Scottish Ministers committed to making a law to ensure that people living in adult care homes can stay connected with their loved ones. That law is known as Anne’s Law, in memory of Anne Duke, and was enacted in July 2025 as part of the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025.

The Act requires new duties and responsibilities relating to visiting arrangements to be given to care home providers. This means that a set of regulations has to be written, along with a supporting Code of Practice. The Code of Practice will provide explanations and examples of how the regulations should work day-to-day.

It is important that both documents are clear, practical and that they meet the needs of those who will use them.

A set of draft regulations for Anne’s Law was therefore developed to outline what providers must do. The development of these regulations builds on several years of engagement with care home residents, their families and friends, care home providers and professional groups. This includes ongoing input from the Anne’s Law National Oversight Group, which has met regularly since 2021, and played an important role in shaping the policy approach.

Consultation

To ensure the regulations are clear and workable, the Scottish Government carried out a public consultation from September to October 2025. This included an online survey, visits to care homes to hear directly from residents, families and staff, and discussions with national organisations and professional bodies.

This report summarises the feedback from the consultation. It will be used to help finalise the regulations and to inform the development of the supporting Code of Practice.

How the consultation was carried out

The consultation used several methods to gather views from people affected by the draft regulations.

An online survey was shared widely, including through the Care Inspectorate, Scottish Care, Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS), the Anne’s Law National Oversight Group and Scottish Government communication channels. The survey was open from 26 September 2025 until 17 October 2025, giving respondents three weeks to take part.

To ensure that people most affected by care home visiting policies had an opportunity to share their experiences and perspectives, the Scottish Government carried out in-person visits to five care homes across the country. Visiting homes in-person ensured that residents with cognitive or neurological conditions or communication needs were included. This method was designed to capture views from those often under-represented in written consultations, such as who may face communication barriers or have limited digital access and may not have been able to complete an online survey.

During these visits, care home residents, their family and friends, and care home staff members took part in one-to-one interviews or small group discussions using a flexible and inclusive approach.

Some organisations submitted separate written responses outwith the formal survey, largely because the survey’s character-limited design did not accommodate the level of detail they wished to provide. Although separate submissions were not invited as part of the consultation, they were included in the analysis to ensure that more detailed operational, regulatory and professional perspectives could be considered.

Ongoing feedback from the Anne’s Law National Oversight Group also informed the consultation, drawing on experience from relatives of people in care home, care home providers, and public health and regulatory bodies.

Using several different methods allowed people to contribute in ways that suited them and helped ensure a broad and inclusive evidence base. Each method produced different types of information, and these were brought together to inform the findings in this report.

The feedback from the consultation will be used to finalise the wording of the regulations and to inform the supporting Code of Practice.

Structure of the report

The report is organised around each of the draft regulations. For each regulation, there is a:

• note of the purpose of the Regulation
• the draft wording of the Regulation
• summary of the survey results and feedback responses
• summaries of key themes from care home visits
• summary of additional written submissions from organisations
• insights from stakeholder meetings

The concluding section brings together the main findings across all consultation evidence, with an indication of what will happen as a result of the feedback.