Government wants to make Covid jab mandatory for home care workers and NHS staff

The government has begun a public consultation into whether Covid and flu vaccinations should be made compulsory for home care workers and the NHS workforce, but home care leaders warn it could lead to the sector losing around a fifth of its staff.

Launched 9 September, the six-week consultation seeks views on whether vaccination for all frontline NHS and care staff in England should be mandatory to protect patients from infection, serious illness or death.

Ministers are now seeking ways to ensure all health and care staff including home care workers are fully vaccinated and are urging home care workers, care providers, NHS workers, patients and their families to add their views to the consultation before a final decision on mandatory vaccination is made this winter.

If made mandatory for all NHS and care workers, only those who are fully vaccinated, unless medically exempt, could be deployed to deliver health and care services.

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “It’s so clear to see the impact vaccines have against respiratory viruses which can be fatal to the vulnerable, and that’s why we’re exploring mandatory vaccines for both COVID-19 and flu.

“We will consider the responses to the consultation carefully.”

Flu vaccination has been recommended for staff and vulnerable groups in the UK since the late 1960s - with the average number of estimated deaths in England for 2015 to 2020 at over 11,000 deaths a year. During the 2019/2020 winter season, 86 per cent of deaths associated with flu were for people aged 65+.

The Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has advised this winter will be the first in the UK when SARS-CoV-2 is expected to co-circulate alongside other respiratory viruses such as flu.

This is expected to significantly contribute to the NHS’s winter pressures, with more vulnerable people expected to be admitted into hospital over the coming months.

The consultation is seeking views on the proposals and any impact it could have on staffing and safety such as reducing staff sickness absence.

UKHCA: 'Mandatory vaccination will cause 'substantial loss of workforce'

Dr Jane Townson, the chief executive of the UK Homecare Association (UKHCA), said: "UKHCA strongly supports vaccination of the home care workforce and we lobbied hard, right from the beginning, to enable ease of access to vaccinations.

"We are really pleased that 81.7per cent of home care workers have had their first vaccine, and 69.4 per cent have had their second dose. Our concern is that vaccination as a condition of deployment will likely result in a substantial loss of the workforce, potentially at least 20 per cent.

"Right now, we are experiencing the most extreme challenges in recruitment and retention in history, at a time of rising demand for home care. We feel it's very important to balance the mitigated risk of infection with the risk of unavailability of care at home for highly dependent older and disabled people.

'Persuasion more effective' than compulsion

"Vaccination was only ever part of the infection prevention and control measures and recent data suggest that vaccinated people may be able to spread the delta variant of COVID-19 as readily as unvaccinated people.

"Home care providers continue to follow guidelines on PPE, regular testing, ventilation, cleaning and other IPC measures. Our belief is that persuasion will be more effective than compulsion at encouraging vaccination without losing vital workforce capacity.”

The COVID-19 vaccine has according to Public Health England saved over 112,000 lives so far.

The government recently consulted on making COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for care home staff. To protect care home residents, workers will now need to be double jabbed as a condition of deployment in CQC-regulated care homes in England by 11 November, unless exempt.

For individuals with an allergy or condition, the JCVI advises seeking medical advice on whether the individual should be exempt before proceeding with vaccination.

The consultation ‘Making vaccination a condition of deployment in the health and wider social care sector’ can be found on the gov.uk website. The public consultation ends on 22 October.