A parliamentary human rights committee has called on ministers to legislate against blanket bans on care home visits in England that relatives claim are causing deaths through loneliness and isolation. Harriet Harman, the chair of the cross-party joint human rights committee of MPs and peers, has asked the health secretary, Matt Hancock, to require care homes to allow face-to-face visits – including without screens – unless an individual safety assessment judges it unsafe. It comes amid rising anger among relatives as many care homes remain shut to all but end-of-life visits in an attempt to keep out new fast-spreading Covid variants. This is despite government guidance that they should set visiting policy “on the basis of a dynamic risk assessment taking into consideration the needs of individuals within their home”. Relatives claim that a designated visitor, regularly tested, adds no more risk than a care worker and provides vital support. Deaths of care home residents mentioning Covid on the death certificate in England and Wales have risen to the highest level since last May, bringing the care resident death toll across the UK to more than 36,000. In the four weeks to 22 January, fatalities linked to the virus more than tripled to 2,364 in England and Wales, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday. They rose most sharply in south-east England – where care homes have been hit hard by the rapid spread of the new Kent variant of the virus – and the east of England. Covid fatalities have also been rising quickly in care homes in the south-west and north-west of England. The figures include deaths of residents in hospitals as well as in care homes. In a letter to Hancock, Harman said: “We urge you to look at how other countries are tackling this, such as Canada, where in Ontario they have changed the law to allow access to care homes for a relative who is a designated caregiver, provided they test negative before each visit.” Diane Mayhew, a co-founder of the Rights for Residents campaign group, which is backing the move, said that with some care homes even banning window visits relatives are in mental anguish and that there is no risk-free solution. “They are posting [on Facebook] they can’t sleep, they are not eating properly and they are thinking about the guilt they feel,” she said. It also emerged on Tuesday that vaccinations are yet to start of residents in more than 100 care homes in England as a result of ongoing Covid outbreaks. It means several thousand of the people in the highest-priority group are not yet covered. The NHS has told GPs to vaccinate in care homes where outbreaks are ongoing where it is safe to do so. The government set a target of inoculating them all by the end of last week. Hancock told parliament 10,307 care homes had been reached. “There are 110 care homes where the vaccination programme is still outstanding because they’ve had outbreaks and, for clinical reasons, the vaccination programme can’t start there,” he said. “But it will as soon as it’s clinically possible.” A government spokesperson said: “We know visits to care homes are crucial in supporting the health and wellbeing of residents, which is why we have updated guidance to ensure visits can continue to take place safely during periods of national lockdown. “The government is looking to ensure that a wider range of visiting arrangements are made available for care home residents when it is safe to do so.”