Five Lincolnshire care homes on ‘red alert’ due to COVID cases

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.”