Five care homes in Lincolnshire are on ‘red status’ due to positive COVID-19 cases, either with staff or residents.
Care operators across the country are facing acute staffing shortages caused by Omicron and, according to The Guardian, 90 in England have declared a “red” alert. The report says that this means staffing ratios have been breached.
Over 11,000 care home workers are off for coronavirus reasons, according to internal health system staffing data seen by The Guardian.
The worst affected areas appear to be in the north-east, north-west and parts of London, where combined COVID and non-COVID absence rates ranged from 16% to 22%.
The report states that experts said care standards could suffer as absences rose and councils were braced to redeploy staff from other services to help backfill threadbare rotas.
In Lincolnshire, five care homes have ‘red’ status and Alina Hackney, Head of Commercial Services at Lincolnshire County Council, said in a statement to The Lincolnite: “Five care homes in the county have an overall status of red, due to positive COVID cases, either through staff or residents.
“We have been in direct contact with these care homes and they all have successful contingency arrangements in place and are continuing to maintain services.
“Our services are holding up well against the current challenges but we will continue to monitor the position closely and provide support where we can.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told The Guardian: “Protecting care staff and people who use social care services continues to be a priority, especially as cases surge and Omicron spreads rapidly across the country.
“Throughout the pandemic, we have made almost £2.4bn in specific funding available for adult social care and this week we announced an extra £60m to keep people in care homes safe over January.”
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Schools and universities in Lincolnshire recognise the potential benefits, but also the concerns, over the use of artificial intelligence.
The results of the government’s first ever Call for Evidence on Artificial Intelligence in Education’ report were published on Tuesday, November 28. It was open for 10 weeks and closed on August 23 this year, with 567 responses received during that time. Most respondents were “broadly optimistic” about the use of GenAI in education.
Almost two months on from Network Rail stating it had implemented “new cleaning regimes” for its railway bridge on Brayford Wharf East, the same concerns of graffiti, dirt and moss growth are continuing — and we are no clearer on how regularly the bridge is cleaned.
The bridge, which opened in 2019 in a bid to improve public safety on the railway crossing, is regularly used by many commuters and residents in Lincoln, but it has been the topic of a cleanliness discussion for many months now.
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