Consultation Launched on Mandatory COVID Vaccination for Care Home Staff

Friday, 16th April 2021

The five-week consultation will look at requiring care home providers, caring for older adults, to only use workers who have received their COVID-19 vaccination in an attempt to further protect residents who are among the most vulnerable to COVID-19, and staff.

Health and Social Care 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 vaccine is already preventing deaths and is our route out of this pandemic. We have a duty of care to those most vulnerable to COVID-19, so it is right we consider all options to keep people safe.

The government has stated that the vaccine has already had a significant impact on reducing hospitalisations and deaths, with more than 10,000 lives saved between December 2020 and March 2021.

Vic Rayner, CEO of the National Care Forum, said:

“There has been much speculation about the Government’s plans to mandate vaccination for care staff working in older people’s care settings. It is not clear how it can be possible to focus mandatory vaccines on only one cohort of staff working with older people when older people are very likely to experience care and treatment interventions from health staff and a range of other professionals. This consultation has very significant implications for the older people living in care homes and their families, the organisations who run care homes and the staff who work in them, so we urge them all to respond to the consultation to make their views heard. Our shared aim must remain to focus on what works to make sure that as many people as possible in social care are able to have the vaccine.“

Read more on this story: https://www.carehomeprofessional.com/newsflash-consultation-launched-on-mandatory-care-home-staff-vaccination/