Archive for category: News

Covid-19 update – 7 January 2021

Dear members, volunteer coordinators and parish councillors

Happy New Year to you all. I hope everyone had a chance to take some time off and recuperate and that the news about the national lockdown hasn’t affected you and your families too badly. Please do take a look at the newsletter we sent out before Christmas if you, your families or your communities are in need of some ideas on how to feel happier at home during the winter months, or to find sources of support if things are feeling overwhelming.

National lockdown – what are the rules?

The current restrictions are similar to those we were under in March – the overarching message is to stay home, protect the NHS, save lives.  The limited reasons to leave your home are as follows:

• To shop for basic necessities, for you or a vulnerable person
• To go to work, or provide voluntary or charitable services, if you cannot reasonably do so from home
• To exercise with your household (or support bubble) or one other person, this should be limited to once per day, and you should not travel outside your local area
• To meet your support bubble or childcare bubble where necessary, but only if you are legally permitted to form one
• To seek medical assistance or avoid injury, illness or risk of harm (including domestic abuse)
• To attend education or childcare – for those eligible

Please help us to share these reminders in your community by sharing our Facebook and Twitter posts.

Coronavirus cases in South Cambridgeshire

We know the lockdown is going to be tough but it clearly isn’t a decision the government has taken lightly – the rate of increase of positive cases nationally, and the number of people needing hospital treatment and also, sadly, dying means that this lockdown is really needed. You may have heard the Chief Medical Officer say earlier this week that 1 in 50 people across the country are currently infected.

The cases in South Cambridgeshire have risen too – up to 435 per 100,000 and we do have the new variant of the virus. You can view the latest information on cases in South Cambridgeshire on the Government’s website if you search by ‘local authority’ and then South Cambridgeshire. Our hospitals are under an enormous amount of pressure and are encouraging people to only attend A&E, or call 999, for emergencies and life threatening situations – if it isn’t an emergency, people are being asked to call 111 in the first instance. You may wish to share the local NHS Facebook or Twitter posts with your communities online.

You will have heard that the new variant of the virus is much more transmissible and it is vital that we all do everything we can to help people understand that lockdown really does means lockdown, and to remind people of the guidelines and why it is important that we all play our part to stop the spread of the virus. We all need to remember the longstanding guidance to regularly wash our hands, wear face coverings, keep a safe space of 2 metres from anyone outside our household, and to keep our homes ventilated – this last thing could help prevent an infected person in your house from transmitting it to the rest of the household, so it is worth trying to do it to protect our loved ones and to avoid any additional pressure on the NHS.

National lockdown – Clinically Extremely Vulnerable residents

Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) people have again been asked to shield during the current lockdown (but people over the age of 70 who aren’t CEV have not been asked to shield this time).

The Government is writing to everyone on this list to ensure that they are aware of the support that’s available. Cambridgeshire County Council is also writing to the 32,000 CEV residents in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough with information about local support in each district, including the help from local community groups. As in November’s lockdown, we will not be sharing lists of these individuals as, unlike in March, these individuals now have the knowledge and information to seek help if they need it. If we become aware of any individuals who do need support, we will (of course) contact your groups for assistance. More information can be found on the CEV pages of the Government’s website. This includes how to register and update their details.

Vaccination programme

The really positive news at the moment is the speed with which the Government is intending to vaccinate people. Here are a few key points that it may be helpful for you to be aware of, to help guide and reassure residents:

• The availability of vaccination appointments is going to grow enormously over the next couple of weeks – whereas people were likely to have to visit a hospital to be vaccinated before Christmas, many more local GP surgeries are going to be able to invite people to be vaccinated
• If people are registered with a GP and they are in the priority groups identified, they will be contacted to arrange an appointment – the NHS is asking people not to enquire with their local GP about when they will be vaccinated (unless they are not currently registered with GP) – a ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ message is clear from the NHS
• People who are invited to have the vaccine will be written to as well as contacted by text/phone call – so it doesn’t matter if people don’t have a mobile phone to receive an invitation by text – they won’t miss out
• There are, sadly, people trying to profit from the vaccination programme – please help to share the message in your communities about people being aware of scams – you could share these Facebook and Twitter posts from Cambridgeshire Constabulary, but the main thing to remind residents about is that they will never need to use a bank card for identification nor will they ever need to pay for the vaccine
• People who have appointments to be vaccinated can and should leave the house even in lockdown to attend these appointments.

Date for your diary: briefing on Thursday 14 January
Our next online briefing for parishes, community groups and councillors will take place on Thursday 14 January at 7pm. Please put the event in your diaries, and we will send an update next week with information about the speakers and about how to access the online event.

C3 Church meal scheme

You may remember from our updates in December that we are relaunching the meal scheme with C3 Church, using Villiers Park, Foxton as a Southern Hub for the district.

If you know of any residents who would benefit from receiving a weekly meal, please get in touch. The meals are prepared by the professional cooks at C3 Church and then frozen, so the resident would be required to reheat it at home. A community volunteer would also be required to collect the meal from Villiers Park between 12.45pm and 1.30pm on Thursdays.

To help run the scheme we are also looking for a volunteer who is available to collect the meals from C3 Church, Coldham’s Lane, on Thursdays at 11.30am, and deliver them to Villiers Park. If you are interested and available to help please email . If you know of an individual who would benefit from this scheme please also email .

Help to access home schooling tech

The Council has provided funding to Cambridge Online, to help provide devices and data to children who are particularly affected during the pandemic and need support to access online education. For more information, visit Cambridge Online, email or call the Cambridge Online helpline on 01223 300407, quoting ‘South Cambs Winter Support Grant’. The Cambs Youth Panel is also working to help provide students with technology.

Stay Well heating grants

Grants of up to £300 are available for vulnerable individuals and families living in Cambridgeshire who are facing fuel poverty. These grants can be used towards future heating costs. For those who are homeless, other costs of keeping warm (such as sleeping bags) will also be considered. Grant recipients must be referred by an organisation – either voluntary sector or local authority – that has assessed the circumstances of the claim and can verify that the individual or family is in extreme crisis and in need of immediate assistance.

Grants for groups supporting families with essential supplies

Grants are available for groups supporting families in South Cambridgeshire via the CCVS website. If you are a small organisation that is supporting families with food, fuel or other essential items (or want to start doing so) then you can apply for funding to provide more help. This money can only be spent on families with at least one child under the age of 18, to help families with food, or fuel, or emergency supplies.

Some examples of how you could spend this money include, but are not limited to: food for your food hub scheme; preparing hampers or food parcels; vouchers for families to spend in their local shops or supermarkets (not cash); top up cards for gas or electricity costs; funds to pay gas or electricity bills or to buy fuel oil; providing things like children’s coats, blankets or sanitary products. You can apply for up to £500.

Mental health training for councillors, parishes and community groups

We have commissioned mental health training from MIND for councillors, parish councils and community groups. The training is free of charge and is in two parts. Please share this training link for the first part with everyone in your community group. It is a webinar they can view in their own time.

The second phase of training will allow up to two people from each parish to extend their knowledge of mental health by attending an online workshop with a coach from MIND. Please book on either date by 12pm on Friday 8 January via the links below:

• Monday 11 January, from 1pm to 2pm
• Tuesday 12 January, from 7pm to 8pm

A reminder of support available

If anyone in your community needs practical support (such as organising shopping or prescriptions) or help to cover their costs, there are a couple of options available:

• The small upfront grants of £100 to £400 we provided can be used for any one-off support for an individual or family that you come across
• Residents can call the Countywide Covid hub directly on 03450 455 219, or you can call them with a resident in mind, for support including food deliveries or regular phone calls to support residents’ mental wellbeing
• Priority slots for supermarket deliveries for people who are shielding – individuals can register
• Payments of £500 are available to support a loss of income during the self-isolation
• Anyone whose income has reduced should check the government website to see what benefits they may be entitled to, and then also contact us to apply for Council Tax Support and to find out about other help we may be able to offer, such as through a Hardship fund
• Two hot food schemes are currently running, covering many villages in the district – please let us know of any residents who you think would particularly benefit from receiving a weekly meal and we can discuss whether any volunteer support would be needed to deliver these in your village
• A reminder of some answers to Frequently Asked Questions from previous lockdowns – covering topics such as collecting prescriptions for vulnerable people, signposting to resources to help people with their mental wellbeing, and other practical information.

Best wishes

Bill Handley

Lead Cabinet Member for Community Resilience, Health & Wellbeing

South Cambridgeshire District Council

Dear members, volunteer coordinators and parish councillors

The Government has announced that Cambridgeshire is moving into Tier 4 restrictions from 12.01am on Saturday 26 December.

I had hoped that the previous update would be the last until the New Year but we wanted to share with you all what this announcement will mean.

Firstly, the change does not affect Christmas Day. People can still choose to mix with two other households. However, as we have stressed before, the fact that people are allowed to do that does not mean you should. Less mixing and shorter celebrations will minimise the risk to loved ones and help ensure Coronavirus is not passed on. Please do share our Facebook posts within your communities to help encourage people to spend their Christmas Day as safely as possible:

• Cllr Bridget Smith shares her plans to have a smaller Christmas
• For anyone worrying about whether it’s safe to spend time together, it’s not too late to change plans

You can view the full guidance on Christmas bubbles on the Government’s website.

What does Tier 4 mean for community groups and local support?

People on the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable list who cannot work from home are not allowed to go to work under Tier 4 restrictions. Clearly this also means they should not go to the shops for food or medication either. This group of people have been provided with lots of information since the beginning of the pandemic and asked to register on the Government’s website for updates. We have also provided additional information over recent months to ensure they know how to contact key organisations such as the County Council, ourselves and to remind them that local Covid community groups can also help them. You can check or pass on the latest Government guidance for Clinically Extremely Vulnerable people in Tier 4 on the Government’s website.

As time has passed, most people who are Clinically Extremely Vulnerable have become very self-sufficient in dealing with the restrictions so we are not expecting a big increase in requests for support.

The online supermarket delivery priority for people who are Clinically Extremely Vulnerable remains in place to ensure they can receive food when needed. However, we wanted to remind you that we also have access to a separate online priority scheme for Tesco and Iceland. The scheme is aimed at people who cannot go shopping due to Covid-19. There is more information on our website. Please ask anyone this may help to contact us so we can arrange this.

Summary of Tier 4 rules

• Don’t invite anyone into your home for social reasons, who you don’t normally live with or who isn’t in your existing support bubble.
• Only leave home for essential reasons (for food/medicine/essential care or personal safety) and when you are out, remember to keep 2 meters away from anyone you don’t live with, wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay in well ventilated, uncrowded places.
• You can go out to exercise alone, with people you live with, or with one other person you don’t live with providing this is in a public place like a park.
• Everyone must work from home unless they are unable to do so, and if it is essential to work outside the home take maximum precautions – particularly travelling to or from work (avoid car sharing and busy public transport, wear a mask, regular hand washing or sanitising, staying in well ventilated places, and cleaning surfaces).
• Don’t travel outside Tier 4 unless for essential work or education or a legally permitted reason – and reduce the journeys you take inside the area. People from Tiers 1 – 3 should not travel to Tier 4 areas, except for essential purposes such as work, education or a legally permitted reason.

Other impacts of the Tier 4 rules are as follows:

• All non-essential shops will close. Click and collect is allowed.
• All hospitality will be closed – except for take away, drive through or food delivery.
• Businesses offering personal care, hairdressers, barbers, beauty salons, gyms etc. will all close.
• No weddings except in exceptional circumstances, funerals with only a maximum of 30 people.
• Places of worship open for private prayer or communal worship – but don’t mix with anyone not in your household.
• Visits to care homes can take place if there are arrangements such as substantial screens, visiting pods, or behind windows.
• Close-contact indoor care home visits supported by rapid testing, which are allowed in some care homes in Tiers 1-3, will not be allowed in Tier 4.
• Entertainment venues are closed. Some outdoor sports facilities are allowed with Covid secure measures

The Government’s website has the full guidance for Tier 4.

Finally, I know the latest announcement will mean we are all thinking what else we can do to help. We still have a way to go in the pandemic and your support is more vital than ever. To ensure help is there when it is needed I would encourage you to ensure you also have break.

I wish you and your family a safe Christmas.

Bill Handley

Lead Cabinet Member for Community Resilience, Health & Wellbeing

South Cambridgeshire District Council