1. Home
  2.  » 
  3. Health
  4.  » 
  5. Coronavirus
  6.  » Government WILL try to make Covid vaccines COMPULSORY for care home staff, Matt Hancock confirms

Connor Boyd, Joe Davies – Daily Mail.com April 14, 2021

Ministers will push for coronavirus vaccines to become mandatory for care home staff in England, Matt Hancock confirmed today.

The Health Secretary argued workers have a ‘duty of care’ to elderly residents, who are most at risk of dying from the disease.

Mr Hancock claimed industry bosses were united in their calls for a ‘no jab, no job’ policy, insisting good uptake was ‘our route out of this pandemic’.

Critics said any decision to make jabs compulsory would be an ‘incredibly bad idea’. And England’s care chief claimed the sector was still ‘divided’ over the plans, which were first leaked three weeks ago.

Department of Health officials have now launched a five-week consultation on the proposal, with a final decision expected by July.

Asked whether care home staff who refuse a vaccine could be sacked, Government sources told MailOnline: ‘Everything is on the table’.

The scheme will only apply to care homes for elderly people and does not include facilities housing younger disabled or vulnerable adults. NHS workers and home carers won’t be subjected to the new rules either.

NHS England figures show 78.9 per cent of care home workers are still to come forward for their jab, the equivalent of nearly 100,000.

The Department of Health and Social Care said nearly half of all elderly care homes do not meet vaccination thresholds.

SAGE has said at least 80 per cent of staff and 90 per cent of residents need to be immunised to provide a minimum level of protection against Covid outbreaks. More than a quarter of all Covid deaths have been care home residents.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman previously accepted it would be ‘discriminatory’ to force anyone to be vaccinated.

Quizzed about mandatory vaccines last November, the PM himself said: ‘That’s not the way we do things in this country’.

Continues …