No jab no job: Care home staff face compulsory Covid vaccinations
Care home staff in England may face compulsory vaccination against Covid to prevent residents from catching the disease, the government has announced.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has launched a five-week consultation on the plans, which would see staff forced to receive a Covid jab as a condition of working in care homes with older residents.
Care homes for younger disabled and vulnerable adults will not be included in the plans, nor will home care services.
It comes amid concerns that low vaccine uptake among care home staff is putting elderly residents at risk.
Experts on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) said at least 80 per cent of staff and 90 per cent of residents in elderly care homes must be vaccinated to provide a minimum level of protection against outbreaks.
Currently, only 53 per cent of older adult care homes in England have achieved this threshold. DHSC warned the figure could leave up to 150,000 residents in care homes at increased risk of catching coronavirus.
The staff vaccination rate is below 80 per cent in more than half of local authorities in England, including all 32 London boroughs.
Lambeth, where surge testing is currently underway to curb an outbreak of the South African Covid variant, has the lowest staff vaccination rate in the entire country.
Queues of residents were seen snaking around testing centres this morning as part of England’s largest surge testing operation to date in Lambeth and the surrounding areas of Southwark and Wandsworth.
It comes after 44 people test positive for a new, more transmissible South Africa variant of coronavirus, with another 30 cases suspected.
Ruth Hutt, director of public health for Lambeth Council, said one of the clusters was picked up in a care home in the South London borough.
Hutt urged care homes in the area to “routinely test all their staff and residents on a weekly and monthly basis” to stop the spread of new variants.
Announcing the consultation on mandatory vaccines for care home staff, health secretary Matt Hancock said: “Older people living in care homes are most at risk of suffering serious consequences of Covid-19 and we have seen the grave effects the virus has had on this group.
“Making vaccines a condition of deployment is something many care homes have called for, to help them provide greater protection for staff and residents in older people’s care homes and so save lives.”
The health secretary added that the vaccine remains “our route out of this pandemic”, and that the government would “consider all options to keep people safe”.
The prospect of compulsory vaccinations has been the subject of fierce debate since Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins revealed to City PM earlier this year that his would become the first company in the UK to introduce a “no jab, no job” policy.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said in February that “taking a vaccine is not mandatory and it would be discriminatory to force somebody to take one”.
The CBI business group has said there is no case for forcing employees to be vaccinated before entering the workplace, adding that businesses were “committed to doing everything they could to inform and engage their employees on the benefits of the vaccine”.
Employment lawyers have also cast doubt on the legality of “no jab, no job” contracts.
The Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 specifically states that members of the public cannot be forced to undergo any mandatory medical treatment, including vaccinations.