To think that all NHS staff must be Covid vaccinated?

[Justecelaoui]

Just that really.

People have a choice whether to go shopping to supermarkets and risk it. They can get others to shop for them or get shopping delivered via online ordering. Patients don't have a choice. They either go to their hospital/doctor appointment and receive treatment or they don't. See the difference?

Or they're very much within their rights to request to be seen by a vaccinated member of staff. Everyone gets a choice and everyone gets autonomy over their own body. See the difference?

loveyou3x

They really do have a love hate relationship with us don’t they? Fwiw I had the vaccine and I am pregnant, fairly confident it’s safe and too worried about catching it. But I have no problem with anyone refusing it, I also think the principle of forcing it on anyone is completely wrong“

How do you feel about the PP, also pregnant, declining the jab but continuing to work face to face with cancer patients.
Should they be switched to a non-facing role?

Carycy

Chairmans wateroffaduckscrack did not state that the majority of care home staff wouldn’t have the vaccine.
But maybe that staff don’t want to lose their body autonomy for minimum wage is not worth it. Exactly, thank you. Even a small percentage of care home staff is enough to cause closures to homes too. It's very concerning due to the aging population. Unfortunately many people just don't care about the elderly, as no one likes to think they'll get old or be in need of care.

Vulnerable staff need to be redeployed to "safer" jobs if they can't be vaccinated.

Safer jobs like what exactly?

Downgraded 3 pay bands so they can do a receptionists role? Do you think that’s what nurses deserve? Especially after all they’ve done over the last year!! To be taken away from what they’ve trained for and what they’re passionate about? To lose their registration?

And what about all the staffing levels of wards where vulnerable staff are being moved from? Who is going to make up that deficit? Do you think I there’s a long string of nurses desperately wanting a job that will be queuing up to step into the shows of highly qualified nurses who have been moved?

You are aware of the National crisis regarding nurse shortages and nursing vaccines?

How quickly NHS staff fell from being heroes to now being zeros.

Some of the attitudes to NHS staff is disgusting.

That was supposed to say the crisis surround nursing vacancies, not nursing vaccines.

@ThornAmongstRoses

Vulnerable staff need to be redeployed to "safer" jobs if they can't be vaccinated.

Safer jobs like what exactly?

Downgraded 3 pay bands so they can do a receptionists role? Do you think that’s what nurses deserve? Especially after all they’ve done over the last year!! To be taken away from what they’ve trained for and what they’re passionate about? To lose their registration?

And what about all the staffing levels of wards where vulnerable staff are being moved from? Who is going to make up that deficit? Do you think I there’s a long string of nurses desperately wanting a job that will be queuing up to step into the shows of highly qualified nurses who have been moved?

You are aware of the National crisis regarding nurse shortages and nursing vaccines?

How quickly NHS staff fell from being heroes to now being zeros.

Some of the attitudes to NHS staff is disgusting.

There are plenty of senior roles in the NHS that don't deal in close proximity with the most vulnerable patients, such as blood cancer sufferings in the middle of chemotherapy courses. These patients will have been shielding for over a year, yes, even when they didn't "have to" as they know they are vulnerable and continue to be advised by their haematologist to continue shielding. Then they have to walk into hospitals and risk being "treated" by unvaccinated staff. Where's the sense in that? Why should the only place they are "at risk" be the same place they should be safe and the only place they can't avoid, i.e. the hospital where they have to go to receive their treatment!

There are plenty of senior roles in the NHS that don't deal in close proximity with the most vulnerable patients....

That sounds better - a simple plan of promoting all the vulnerable unvaccinated nurses into better paid, more senior roles that just happen to be going spare.

Now that’s an idea I can get on board with. Sign me up!!

And what about all the vulnerable and unvaccinated doctors, physiotherapists, radiographers, surgeons, dieticians, anaesthetists, midwives etc etc - where are you going to redeploy them to?

And who is going to be filling in for their job roles?

Or is it just the unvaccinated lowly nurses that are dispensable?

I think people are forgetting that unvaccinated HCPs are not going round smearing covid on to patients. We have strict infection control procedures, PPE and have to take lateral flow tests twice weekly. A patient isn’t running the gauntlet every time they come into contact with an unvaccinated hcp. The chances of them catching covid from us is extremely small.
There is no one to fill my role if I was to resign / be redeployed. It would take months to fill due to national and indeed international shortage of staff. And in a couple of months, when I’m in second trimester, I’ll be fully vaccinated anyway. Many, many patients would have delays to their cancer diagnosis if you start taking people like me off the diagnostic front line. But cancer doesn’t seem to scare people as much as covid nowadays for some reason.

This thread has become laughable. People actually wanting to pull extremely skilled clinicians from their roles for not having the vaccine during pregnancy. So in my team there would be no consultant medic. Brilliant plan. Cant see any problem with that at all. FFS.

And agree with PP it takes MONTHS (sometimes years!) to recruit.

Late to the convo; some staff may not be able to get the vaccine due to their own underlying conditions. Some will be immunized but still not develop antibodies. As a whole it’s a career where you already need vaccines and if not accepted you need to mask etc.
I think it’s a moot point. What they need is sick time and sick pay to stay home if sick.

This thread has become laughable.

100% this. Some people’s thought processes are totally ridiculous and their ideologies are a million miles away from reality.

@Lottapianos

'As much as I support the Vaccine I think it's a human rights issue to enforce this'

NHS worker here and I agree. I don't have much patience for vaccine refusers whether they're healthcare workers or not, but I'm not ok with anyone being forced to have it

Do you work in a clinical role? If you do what’s your stance on being forced to have hep b vaccination?

My 20yo daughter caught covid two weeks after starting her new job in a hospital at Xmas time. She had a mild illness. Because of her age and hearing scare stories about clots and fertility problems she's reluctant to have the vaccine at this time and would rather wait for more information. I have to say I support her with her concerns and decision. She is young, she's had covid so likely has antibodies right now and if the vaccine does have potential side effects such as fertility etc then she has every right to wait and see.

I have to be hep b vaccinated to work in a high exposure area of the hospital (I work in theatres). What makes the covid vaccine any different seeing as we are in a high exposure area in that case too? When elective surgeries are cancelled during waves we are in covid itu or a&e. Respiratory secretions are a risk factor and we didn’t start elective ent and dental until after other specialities due to the increased risk.

I had both vaccines (first on the first day my trust started them I wanted it that much lol) but although I can see some arguments for not having it (such as my colleague currently having ivf) others I just can’t. It’s mainly younger colleagues not having it. I’m 44 with comorbitidies and bame so my risk is higher than average.

I never realised the Hep B was mandatory I've had every vaccination offered to me since birth (included repeated but ultimately useless rubella ones).

HCP here too. Have had mine and am pleased they seem to be doing a good job overall but there's no way I would support forced medical treatment on anyone. We don't all work with medically vulnerable people so that argument doesn't hold for the whole workforce.

@user1497207191

Except they do still pose a danger because the vaccine will not stop the HCP from catching Covid. It will protect them from serious illness, but they would still be able to transmit Covid should they catch it. And given that the illness would be milder that HCP may not even realise they have Covid.
And again, HCPs also get cancer or have other vulnerabilities. It’s not a one way street.

I am not against the vaccine whatsoever, I have had my first dose, I just don’t think it’s an all or nothing scenario.

@WetJan

I never realised the Hep B was mandatory I've had every vaccination offered to me since birth (included repeated but ultimately useless rubella ones).

HCP here too. Have had mine and am pleased they seem to be doing a good job overall but there's no way I would support forced medical treatment on anyone. We don't all work with medically vulnerable people so that argument doesn't hold for the whole workforce.

I don’t know what you do, but if you work with patients in an exposure prone area, your occupational health will have NOT cleared you to work if you have not vaccinated against a number of diseases. If you are a doctor or nurse you have a professional responsibility (i am pretty sure it’s in the nmc and gmc code of practice) What do you think about the ‘choice’ to wear a mask / or other PPE like a face converting. Is that taking away our freedoms? Or sensible public health to prevent people catching and transmitting a respiratory disease like COVID? Why don’t you try telling your employer you do not wish to wear a mask and see what the outcome is? The principle of vaccination is such that if enough people don’t get it / convey a suitable level of immunity, there is no population benefit, which is why most sensible HCP recommend all vaccines. However on an individual level, IMO it’s just completely bonkers that anyone who has worked through the pandemic and seen such horrific scenes can not endorse protecting themselves, if not anyone else, from such a horrible disease

Where does it end? Do we insist all patients are vaccinated before we give treatment? Do we force drug addicted women to have long term contraception to avoid pregnancies that end in drug addicted newborns?
It’s a very slippery slope when you force a sector of society to dispense with their right to bodily autonomy, it becomes easier for governments to insist on other interventions ‘ for the safety of the vulnerable’ once that line is crossed.

@Recycledblonde

Where does it end? Do we insist all patients are vaccinated before we give treatment? Do we force drug addicted women to have long term contraception to avoid pregnancies that end in drug addicted newborns? It’s a very slippery slope when you force a sector of society to dispense with their right to bodily autonomy, it becomes easier for governments to insist on other interventions ‘ for the safety of the vulnerable’ once that line is crossed.

But we already do with the hep b vaccine and exposure prone healthcare workers?

@Wavypurple hep jab not compulsory in my patient facing role. I also don't not have a job where anyone is anymore vulnerable than the general population. Based in schools. So if its compulsory for me it is for teachers. I am pro vaccine was first in my team to go will be sending my children for it think antivax folk are nuts. However we don't live in that kind of country and I think for the tiny percentage not having it you ll alienate the rest of us

No one can be forcibly vaccinated, but if you are working in health or social care it should be a condition of the job. But people who work in health and social care are livid about 13 years of pay freezes and below inflation rises, with pay lagging further and further behind prices - many are literally on poverty pay, expected to work through the pandemic at massively higher risk of contracting and dying from the illness. Then try tell these people that they have to have a vaccine, that unlike the rest of the population they aren't entitled to bodily autonomy. You can't repair your boiler or buy the kids new shoes with Wednesday night claps.

@TheWatersofMarch I think you re right. Context is everything
. It's on the back of all that that those of us who are 100% not anti vaccine get pissed off. That's what I mean you ll annoy those who are compliant now and those that aren't - a very low number - will fiddle out of it anyway

If your patient facing role involves and handling of blood or blood products. I am fairly certain it is mandatory if you work in the NHS.