Lincolnshire’s farm of the future harvests first crop

Lincolnshire will stay in lowest (tier 1) lockdown for now, despite Nottinghamshire joining South Yorkshire in the toughest tier 3 restrictions from Friday.

The Lincolnshire Outbreak Engagement Board (LOEB) met on Wednesday to discuss the next steps for the region, which was tipped to move into tier 2 restrictions soon due to rising infections in Lincoln.

However, “looking at our current data, in my professional opinion, there is no reason to change our alert level at this point,” said Derek Ward Lincolnshire County Council’s Director of Public Health.

The LOEB consists of Lincolnshire County Council and the district councils, the LEP, plus the CCG and NHS providers, Healthwatch and the Police and Crime Commissioner.

A COVID-19 Health Protection Board (HPB) has also been set up to provide further expert insight and guidance.

“We are monitoring a wide range of numbers which would give an early warning of a small area or whole county resurgence of COVID-19 in Lincolnshire” said Cllr Martin Hill, Chair of the LOEB and Leader of Lincolnshire County Council.

“These include the results of testing carried out by our residents and hospital admissions for the disease, but also include things like sickness absence rates in some of our bigger public sector employers.”

“Although the rates everywhere else are much lower, infection rates in Lincoln itself have gone up recently but we aren’t anticipating that it will mean moving into any other tiers at this stage.

“But we are being vigilant and will do what is necessary going forward. Our message from the LOEB this morning is that there is a ‘status quo’  but we are very much alert to circumstances changing.”

The whole of Nottinghamshire, including Lincoln’s neighbours in Newark, will be placed under tier 3 lockdown restrictions.

Original plans meant Nottingham City, Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe council areas were already preparing to enter the top tier at midnight on Thursday.

This has been changed after talks between council bosses in north Nottinghamshire and the government on Wednesday morning.

As a result the entire county, including Mansfield, Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Newark, will now go into the highest lockdown measures at 12.01am on Friday, October 30.

This is expected to last for 28 days.

Further details are expected to be announced on Wednesday afternoon, including about the financial package from the government.

Nottingham City Council leader David Mellen hit out at the delay in announcing details of the local lockdown measures.

The Lincolnshire [COVID] Outbreak Engagement Board also held a meeting on Wednesday with Health, Public Health and local government partners.

We are monitoring a wide range of numbers which would give an early warning of a small area or whole county resurgence of Covid-19 in Lincolnshire” said Cllr Martin Hill, Chair of the LOEB and Leader of Lincolnshire County Council.

“These include the results of testing carried out by our residents and hospital admissions for the disease, but also include things like sickness absence rates in some of our bigger public sector employers.”

“Although the rates everywhere else are much lower, infection rates in Lincoln itself have gone up recently but we aren’t anticipating that it will mean moving into any other tiers at this stage.

“But we are being vigilant and will do what is necessary going forward. Our message from the LOEB this morning is that there is a ‘status quo’ but we are very much alert to circumstances changing.”

A temporary shortage of certain chemicals is affecting the availability of GP practices in Lincolnshire to carry out routine blood tests.

Swiss healthcare company Roche wrote to NHS labs across the country on Monday after an issue at a new “automated warehouse” caused “a very significant drop” in its processing capacity, according to the Financial Times.

The report claims that “clinicians fear the situation will exacerbate existing shortages in supplies of diagnostics equipment, both for coronavirus and other diseases.”

The situation around Roche and the supply of reagent chemicals has had a knock-on effect on GP practices in Lincolnshire, but clinically urgent blood tests can still be processed.

A spokesperson on behalf of HNS Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group said: “Unfortunately the problems being experienced by NHS supplier Roche are not fully resolved and there is still a temporary shortage of certain chemicals that is affecting the availability of routine blood tests carried out by GP practices, although our GP practices can still process clinically urgent tests.

“We understand this is frustrating for patients, and we are working hard with our partners locally to resolve this as quickly as possible.

“This issue is not in the practices’ control and they are having to rearrange appointments. Please remember to be patient and kind to practice staff.”