Covid jabs WILL be compulsory for NHS staff


Frontline NHS workers in England who haven’t had both their Covid jabs by winter could be sacked or at the very least demoted.   

The Government today launched a six-week consultation into plans to make vaccination a legal requirement to work with NHS patients. 

Under the plans, 1.2million frontline NHS staff will be required by law to be jabbed under plans to reduce transmission in hospitals. 

Those who refuse the jab will reportedly be barred from working with patients, meaning that they will likely be redeployed or risk losing their jobs.

Figures show around 92 per cent of NHS trust staff have received one dose of a vaccine, with 88 per cent of staff having received both doses. The figures are lower in London, where only 86 per cent have had a first jab.

Plans would also require NHS staff to be vaccinated against the flu, amid warnings that the UK will be hit with a bad bout this winter due to a lack of natural immunity.

The move would bring the NHS in line with the care sector, where staff working in elderly care homes are required to be fully vaccinated against Covid.

But it comes despite fears among NHS bosses it could trigger a staffing crisis, hampering efforts to tackle the enormous care backlog.

They have also warned it could be discriminatory, as vaccine uptake is lower in some ethnic minority groups.

And a member of the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) — an independent body that advises the Government on vaccine policy — said making jabs compulsory would feel ‘like an admission of failure’. 

The NHS confederation, which represents organisations in the health service, has argued that compulsory vaccination is unnecessary because NHS staff are ‘overwhelmingly doing the right thing’. 

The 1.2million frontline NHS staff are expected to have to get the coronavirus vaccine

Figures show around 92 per cent of NHS trust staff have received one dose of a vaccine, with 88 per cent of staff having received both doses. The figures are lower in London, where only 86 per cent have had a first jab

Figures show around 92 per cent of NHS trust staff have received one dose of a vaccine, with 88 per cent of staff having received both doses. The figures are lower in London, where only 86 per cent have had a first jab

Do we need to jab kids too? Scotland’s school outbreak ‘has already peaked’

Covid cases among children in Scotland may already be falling just weeks after schools went back and sparked a fresh wave of infections, in an encouraging sign for the rest of the UK.

Public Health Scotland data suggest Covid cases among under-14s peaked at 1,943 on September 1 after rising consistently for three weeks when classes resumed north of the border.

Infections in the age group fell in the following three days and have hovered at almost 1,500 since. 

There was huge concern across the UK when Scotland’s cases rocketed almost three-fold after schools went back in mid-August.

It reignited the debate about whether children aged 12 to 15 should be routinely vaccinated against Covid to keep transmission low and avoid a delayed winter peak. 

Professor Chris Whitty and the other chief medical officers are currently weighing up whether to offer jabs to 12 to 15-year-olds, after the Government’s vaccine advisers said the shots only offered a marginal benefit to their health.

Professor Whitty — who said over summer he would be in favour of jabbing kids to prevent more school closures — is expected to OK the move on Friday. 

The Government announced vaccinations will be compulsory for all care workers from November 11, despite warnings that tens of thousands of carers could leave the profession as a result.

A government source told The Times: ‘It’s only right that those who are caring for people who are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus should be vaccinated. This will save lives.’ They added that Boris Johnson had personally backed the plan for mandatory vaccination for NHS workers.

Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said on Sunday the move was ‘right and responsible’ as NHS staff looking after vulnerable patients have a ‘duty of care’ to get inoculated.

But Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the Council of the British Medical Association, said in June that ‘compulsion is a blunt instrument’ and that implementing a blanket rule would ‘raise new ethical and legal implications’.  

And JCVI member Professor Adam Finn told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that compulsory jabbing of all NHS staff would imply messaging was not effective enough.

Professor Finn, a professor of paediatrics at the University of Bristol, said: ‘It’s a kind of an admission of failure. It’s like saying you can’t either find the time or find the ability to explain to people why it makes sense and create the culture in which everybody does it because they understand why it’s important.

‘If you build a culture, it becomes the norm and everybody does it.’

But he added that he understood why it is being considered.

‘We are in a pandemic and so things sometimes get done differently,’ he said.

The six-week consultation process will take views on whether vaccine requirements should apply for health and wider social care workers – those in contact with patients and people receiving care.

It would mean only those who are fully vaccinated, unless medically exempt, could be deployed to deliver health and care services.

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Israeli scientists say mass booster vaccine scheme has blunted country’s fourth wave 

Covid infections in Israel are falling sharply after the rollout of its mass booster rollout, with hospital admissions and deaths also beginning to trend downwards, according to data.

Figures compiled by the Oxford University-backed research team Our World in Data show Israel’s average daily cases have been falling for the last four days, after peaking at just over 10,000 on September 3, despite children returning to schools.

A total of 4,632 people tested positive on Sunday — the most recent day data is available for — down 20 per cent on the week before (5,809). The country’s seven day average is now around 7,300, down from nearly 8,000 the week before.

Weekly hospitalisations also fell 17 per cent in the seven days ending September 5, while average deaths remained at similar levels week-on-week.

Israel was deemed the Covid capital of the world — with the highest infections rate of any country — just six days ago. 

It began dishing out third doses to everyone above the age of 60 in July and expanded the drive to everyone over 12 at the end of August, which Israeli scientist say has prompted the recent downturn. More than 2.6million in the country have had a booster.

Israeli Government adviser and data scientist Professor Eran Segal said the ‘increase in the rate of infections… has diminished’.

He said: ‘This is likely due to the third booster shots, an uptick in people taking the first dose and the high number of people infected per week who now have natural immunity.’

It comes amid growing pressure on the UK to follow suit in offering third doses to a wide audience with its own booster programme. It is expected to only rollout extra jabs to the elderly and those with underlying health conditions.

Israel’s cases per million (833) are still higher than Britain’s (561) but have begun falling off since September 2, where they peaked at 1115, whereas the UK’s are continuing to climb. 

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said this morning he was ‘very confident’ there will be a booster programme and that he was just waiting on advice on ‘who actually gets it and when’, which will come in the coming days. 

The Government previously said all staff in registered care homes in England must be vaccinated against Covid-19 from November 11, unless medically exempt.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) Social Care Working Group has already advised the overlap between the sectors makes a strong scientific case for there to be similar approaches to vaccination.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the consultation would focus on the proposals, their scope, and any potential impact mandating vaccines could have on staffing and safety such as reducing staff sickness absence.

The process will also seek views on whether flu vaccines should be a requirement for health and care workers.

Findings will then help inform decision-making around how the mandate could be implemented and who could be exempt.

Staff, healthcare providers, stakeholders, patients and their families are being urged to take part, with a final decision expected this winter.

According to the DHSC, around 92 per cent of NHS trust staff have received one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, with 88% of staff having received both doses.

However, the DHSC says new data shows uptake rates between NHS trusts can vary from around 78% to 94% for both doses.

National flu vaccination rates in the health service have increased from 14% in 2002 to 76 per cent last year. But in some settings, rates are as low as 53 per cent.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged all health and social care staff to be vaccinated, regardless of the outcome of the consultation.

He said: ‘Many patients being treated in hospitals and other clinical settings are most at risk of suffering serious consequences of Covid-19, and we must do what we can to protect them.

‘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 and flu.

‘We will consider the responses to the consultation carefully but, whatever happens, I urge the small minority of NHS staff who have not yet been jabbed to consider getting vaccinated – for their own health as well as those around them.’

The care industry has previously expressed concern over the effect mandatory vaccination may have on the sector’s already-stretched staffing levels.

Last month, the Institute of Health and Social Care Management (IHSCM) surveyed more than 1,000 care managers in partnership with the PA news agency.

The survey found that nine in 10 managers said their workplace was experiencing staff shortages or having difficulty recruiting.

A third of managers (32.8 per cent) said they had staff quit or hand in their notice over the requirement to be vaccinated, while more than half (55.2 per cent) said they feared they would have to dismiss staff over the coming months because they had not been vaccinated.



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