Around 2400 people have been discharged from Lincolnshire hospitals following treatment with Covid.

However, the number of admissions continue to rise, with Covid-related patients now taking about one-in-20 of the county's hospital beds.

Hospital bosses, say this is putting pressure on hospital services, worse than experienced in the winter.

The findings are revealed in a monthly report by Clair Raybould, director of operations for the Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group, whose board will be meeting tomorrow.

Mrs Raybould said: "In Lincolnshire we are seeing an increase in Coronavirus infections as in other parts of the country along with high levels of Urgent and Emergency care.

"The links between serious illness and infections have been weakened as a result of excellent progress in the vaccination programme but we are now seeing an increase in Covid admissions including critical care and we are advised to expect this to continue to increase in the coming weeks."

"We are pressing ahead with our recovery trajectory [for the reinstatement of hospital services] but are cognisant of the current pressures and the impact the pandemic this far has had on the system, our people and their health and wellbeing of our staff.

"Workforce shortages as a result of Covid have had an impact on the use of bank and agency staff across providers."

Since the July meeting of the CCG board, Mrs Raybould said COVID19 prevalence has risen sharply across Lincolnshire, due primarily to the Delta variant, reflecting the upward surge in cases seen across the Country and the East Midlands region.

The county tracked higher that the England average, but [based on August 16 figures] there were signs that upward curve had started to flatten.

She said the increase in positive tests are attributed to the night time economy reopening with around 60% of cases linked with night clubs and extended opening hours in pubs.

Mrs Raybould also reported a "steady increase" in Covid hospital admissions in the county this month.

On August 16, Lincolnshire provider hospital beds had 64 Covid positive patients, with 60 at ULHT, 3 at LCHS and 1 at LPFT.

This compares with ULHT alone having 1300 hospital beds.

In addition, figures show around 2,400 have been released from hospital after treatment with Covid-19 in the county.

Lincolnshire has experienced almost 900 deaths out of almost 60,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

Mrs Raybould continued: "The NHS in Lincolnshire is continuing to experience very high levels of patient demand, particularly for urgent and emergency care.

"Our GP Practices, Urgent Treatment Centres, A&E

Departments, and East Midlands Ambulance Service are all reporting sustained pressures of a nature which is beyond that experienced during the depths of winter. "This increase has also being seen in hospitals across the country and is being very closely monitored. In addition, there are concerns that the increase in Covid positive patients in hospitals will impact on the recovery of other NHS services. "Extensive system planning for a wave 3 has taken place which includes the need to retain as much time critical surgery as possible." Mrs Raybould's report, prepared for tomorrow's CCG board meeting also notes how the pandemic and its lockdowns impact on hospital waiting lists. She said: "In Lincolnshire the recovery of services remains a very high priority for us. We are working on a number of key areas as part of our restore and recovery programme which has progressed positively in line with our planned trajectory over the last month and we are continuing to restore services that were paused or cancelled during the last year. "Despite the non-elective pressures and increases in Covid positive patients, time critical surgery is continuing to take place along with outpatient appointments and diagnostics. "Challenges within our main acute provider are increasing, particularly around workforce availability, and so with system support ULHT have implemented some key actions including reinstating response cells and increasing resilience in their Incident Command Centre as mitigation. "With regard to elective operations, in June 2021 the total waiting list size for Lincolnshire patients at all hospitals was circa 75,000 people. This compares to 52,000 in June 2020. Treating so many COVID patients over the past year, along with additional safety measures, has inevitably had a knock-on effect on non-emergency care. She explained: "Prior to the pandemic Lincolnshire only had 7 patients waiting longer than 52 weeks for an elective procedure, all of which was for a specialist operation out of county. "Today the number of Lincolnshire patients waiting over 52 weeks is more than 2,200 which is a reduction from last month. "Grantham Hospital continues to provide ring-fenced surgical capacity and the system is supported by the Independent Sector to maximise the number of patients able to be treated. "Clinical prioritisation is in place to ensure the most urgent patients are seen as quickly as possible. "The backlog remains unchanged within Cancer recovery. The largest backlogs remain within the surgical specialities Colorectal, Head & Neck, Urology and Gynaecology. "The numbers of patients waiting over 104+ days has risen with the majority being in Head and Neck, Urology and Colorectal pathways across all providers. "Almost half the patients waiting over 62 days are on a Colorectal pathway, however all patients on a Colorectal pathway with a diagnosis over 62 days have a date for treatment. "Grantham has restarted Level 1 colorectal surgery and theatres on the Lincoln, Pilgrim and Grantham sites have reopened. Mrs Raybould concluded: "The system as a whole is responding in parallel to an increase in demand for all NHS services, Covid resurgence and this along with seasonal pressures, increasing self-isolation and IPC measures places an increased strain on all of our services and associated pathways of care but we continue to work exceptionally well across the services to do the very best we can for our population and our staff." As Nub News reported earlier today, the CCG meeting can be watched online using Zoom.