'Get out and get another job' Sajid Javid tells unjabbed care workers

Health Secretary Sajid Javid has told care workers to have two doses of the Covid vaccine or ‘get out and get another job’.

Mr Javid also said he will not extend the 11 November deadline for care home workers to have had both doses of a Covid-19 jab.

Speaking on BBC’s Radio 4 programme, Mr Javid said: "If you work in a care home you are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our country, and if you cannot be bothered to go and get vaccinated then get out and go and get another job.

Javid: 'You want to put them to bed, then you should get vaccinated'

"If you want to look after them, if you want to cook for them, if you want to feed them, if you want to put them to bed, then you should get vaccinated. If you are not going to get vaccinated then why are you working in care?"

Dawn Bunter, who worked as a manager of a care home where nine residents died of Covid during the pandemic, tweeted in response: “Cook for them, feed them & put them to bed"... really?

"The absolute LACK of understanding in relation to the skills and expertise these care staff require, in order to fulfil their roles. If working close with the sector... can I ask who?"

Sajid Javid added: "If you think about elderly relatives you might have in care homes, and the idea that someone wants to look after them and they don't want to take a perfectly safe and effective vaccine... because somehow they have got some objection to this vaccine, then really, honestly, they shouldn't be in our care homes."

Figures from NHS England data reveals 84 per cent of staff working in care homes for the elderly have had been double jabbed as of 12 September.

Care England: Give ‘same urgency’ to foreign care workers as HGV drivers

Care home providers have said extending the government’s deadline could give them more time to persuade vaccine-hesitant staff and therefore avoid a huge staff exodus from the sector.

Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England has warned that care homes may shutdown as a result of the government’s mandatory vaccination deadline and foreign care workers must be given 'same urgency' like HGV drivers for fuel shortages to avert a care workforce crisis.

Martin Green said, on Radio 4’s Today programme,: “We all accept we want as many people as possible to be vaccinated. But I do feel the government has gone forward with the social care compulsion without understanding the implications, without having a thought-out plan on how they are going to deal with staff shortages.

“Care homes are now in a difficult position, facing the reality of do they have enough staff to maintain safety and quality of care? They are in the position of either having to transgress the law or expose people they support to levels of staffing that are not going to deliver the safety you’re required to.

“There’s the inevitability that in some areas, if you can’t get the staff, then there will be care homes that close.”

Care home staff who meet government criteria for a medical exemption will be able to self-certify to ensure those with medical exemptions can continue working in care homes, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is due to deliver his Comprehensive Spending Review on 27 October alongside an Autumn Budget. Care England has submitted written evidence to HM Treasury’s Spending Review calling on the government to act immediately to ‘stabilise the sector or face serious and far reaching consequences’.

Some 40,000 care workers could quit their jobs because of the deadline according to government figures.

As the government is allowing foreign HGV drivers into the country to tackle the fuel crisis, Care England said the same urgency needs to be given to the care sector. Care homes want the government to add all care workers to the country's Shortage Occupation List and reduce the salary threshold in the Health and Care Visa.

Care England has demanded immediate investment and government policy changes to ensure the sustainability of the social care workforce in the winter months. It wants to see the continuation of social care's testing and infection control fund beyond six months, to give certainty to the care sector, as it was due to expire on 30 September.

Care England also wants a 10-year workforce plan for social care where career progression, pay and rewards are identified, ‘something that the Build Back Better Plan fails to do’.