Why do care home staff/NHS have to be vaccinated?

[MissMarpleTheMurderer]

We don't insist on other vaccinations (ie you can work on a children's ward without having the measles jab and there have been several small outbreaks recently (v small but measels is much more contagious and has a much worse outcome for children than covid does.)

The local care home has just announced that it will employ vaccinated staff only, however it already struggles to recruit and retain staff and the longest member, who does such a great job looking after my mam has just handed her resignation in as she doesn't want the jab. The care home have said she has to have it because some members of the home have chosen not to have the jab, but she says its unfair they get a choice but she doesn't, (and feels that she doesn't need the jab because she already has had covid and was fine)

Now I get that vaccinations are not 100% but the data is looking good, I feel uncomfortable forcing people to be vaccinated especially when the risk of the illness is so small to them (we don't vaccinate against Hep A or Chickenpox because the risk to people is not cost effective for the NHS, however each year people/children die from it)

Do you support forced vaccination, and if you do how do you plug the gap in social care staffing? (Especially as unlike the debate on R4, the majority of staff do not see it as their vocation, it's a job that pays the bills and a pretty crappy job/wage at that and my mam's care home is now going to have even less staff)

I doubt they’d be a staffing issue at all

When faced with giving up a job most will take it

Your mums carer mustn’t need or really want the job to give it up so easily

She will be easily replaced in current climate

I'd have thought that the impact of requiring vaccination on recruitment could go either way. In the one hand, yes you'd deter anti-vaccers. But if I was a vaccinated care worker I might prefer to work in a home where others were too - reducing my own risks (if I happened to be in the 5-10% whom the vaccine doesn't work for), reducing the chances of me having to care for residents ill with Covid (and deal with angry families blaming the home) and less chance of being understaffed while having to cover colleagues who are off with Covid.

Even students studying health roles have to prove their vaccine status.
Dd was tested for hep b whe she started her degree, but she already had a course because she had worked in a summer camp in USA where she she had to provide proof of all her vaccines or that she had the disease including chicken pox.
I hadnt taken to the drs when she had CP so not on her records, so had to get proof of antibodies, cost £50 and not easy to find when there is only a week and BH get in the wsy

In the 1990s (nhs) I had to have many vaccinations before starting a new job or prove I'd had chickenpox etc, and everytime I changed jobs they asked again.
The only thing that hasn't seemed compulsory but is very much encouraged is the influenza vaccination.
In the middle of a pandemic you can see why care homes want to protect their residents however I do wonder if the change to the contract has been done in a legal format.
I'm on the fence on this one without knowing all the facts. I can definitely see the benefits of doing it and if I had a relative in a home I'd be grateful they were doing it, however would they actually sack the staff for refusing /can they do that? Has the carer chosen to leave or been dismissed?

When I first started working as care assistant, registering with Agency that was sending staff to hospitals had to do all vaccine boosters plus whatever I was missing.
so it's not that they are forcing, I think it's more to protect their staff nd patients.

@jasjas1973

Agree, we should all have freedom of choice in regard to medical treatment. Flu is also a killer of the elderly, CH's nor the NHS, force employees to be vaccinated.

Haha, you clearly don't work for my Trust. OK we're not forcibly restrained for the flu jab or threatened with the sack, but we do get a huge amount of pressure to have it.

If it's anything like the flu jab, it may not actually be as effective in the older and more vulnerable groups as it is for others - so it's not 100% protection against serious illness and deaths for the care home residents. I heard someone on the BBC discussing the latest stats the other day and they mentioned some people have died even though they were vaccinated. With that in mind, having the added protection that comes from staff being less likely to transmit the virus is really helpful in keeping the residents/patients safe.

I can’t understand why anybody working with vulnerable people wouldn’t get the vaccine.
It’s a professional responsibility

I work on a children's ward. I seem to remember having my immunity to chicken pox checked, when I first started work. But it was 17 years ago. So can't be certain.

My opinion is all care staff and Nhs staff should be vaccinated !
We have put our lives on hold to save the NHS and the elderly.
And some people who cannot be vaccinated need protection from those that have , and most covid cases has spread rapidly throu care homes and hospitals

Hep B has always been mandatory in my trust. And the flu vaccine whilst not mandatory is very strongly encouraged and has an high uptake. I’ve had no problem having the Pfizer vaccine because my patients are immuno suppressed and I would never forgive myself if I learnt I’d infected and killed one of them. We have an obligation not to harm those we care for. Unless you have anaphylaxis to the ingredients I don’t see any reason not to have it

I feel uncomfortable about pressuring care staff to have the vaccine, but basically, the care sector and their lack of PPE and so forth have killed thousands of people, not the individual staff, but the management and the government between them. Some care homes, 50% of the residents died in a few week period! Same in hospitals. These were the places people were getting covid and dying from covid, not the supermarket.

We can't allow that to happen again, and so one of the ways forward is going to be a vaccinated care home staff.

What I'd say to that care home staff person is that a) even if they had a positive covid test, we don't know how long immunity lasts, so they may be at risk of getting it again in 6 months time and b) the vaccine seems to boost the immune systems further of those who have had covid, almost like they have had two jabs when they have had one.

It's their choice, but it isn't the choice of the care home residents most of whom would not be able to move or chose a different home whatsoever, so unfortunately I think this is a reasonable decision for a care home chain to make, they should have also had PPE stocks/other measures in place for care homes, I don't believe it was all just the government messing up whatsoever, the sector is run in a very profit driven way with too few staff moving around too many patients and this basically killed a lot of the residents.

There's no point saying 'but she was such a lovely carer' if she unwittingly brings in covid again in 6 months time and kills her patients.

As for carers going from home to home 20 minutes a day, doing intimate care (like washing, moving, toileting) and then going to the next house, there is a really high risk of spread of covid through these activities, it would be horrifying if they aren't vaccinated especially as some people who 'think' they had covid, haven't had it and our way of checking antibodies is not foolproof and isnt'a a guarantee (if our immunity measures were better, people would be able to prove they had reasonable immunity and avoid the vaccine that way).

It isn't forced vaccination. It's a choice. Many jobs have occupational requirements, so if someone doesn't want to fulfil theirs, then that is absolutely fine. They are choosing not to do that job.

Comparing it to measles is disingenuous. Measles hasn't been a contributing factor or the cause of death for millions of people worldwide at any time in living memory. Not even flu has, although I am sure that in days gone by it would have been similarly devastating before we had natural resistance built up as a species - it is still pretty devastating.

I have occupational requirements too. And if I don't meet them then I lose my job. Welcome to the real world. Being "caring" (something I would question if you put yourself before the people you care for) isn't a get out of jail free card. We all care for something.

nobody is being 'forced' - that implies that someone holds you down while they forcibly stick it in your arm.

I think it's up to employers to decide whether or not it's a condition of employment and in this case it's totally reasonable to a. protect the workforce and b. protect the the residents who just happen to be the ones MOST at risk of catching and dying from covid.

In terms of vaccines I think it's helpful to think about it in the broader sense not personal. Vaccinating as many people as possible within a population group is by far the most effective way to keep down the spread of the disease and in particular minimise hospitalisations and death from covid. It's not about protecting ourselves individually.

There is still no firm data afaik that suggests how much immunity you get from actually having covid yourself - chances are immunity from vaccines will be far more effective.

Having worked in care homes, this won't end well for recruiting.

I've worked in many homes and because it's such a horrible job with no respect from managers, long hours and awful pay the turn over is high anyway, usually people who have to do it as a filler job or who have no other choice.

(And yes I know there are some wonderful people who work in homes who do an amazing job but I'm sure everyone who has worked in one has seen the people who couldn't give a monkeys and are only there because they have to be).

Stipulating that people must be vaccinated will make it even harder to recruit people.

I'm saying that the consequence of not having the vaccine, in this case, is that they need to find a different job.

They have a right to enforce restrictions that protect the health and wellbeing at their place of work, for both the staff and the patients. Your mum needs to understand the concept of artificial herd immunity, which I believe is simple enough to be taught at GCSE. Good luck to her finding a new job, I hope more businesses employ these measures, it's a matter of public health, not oh, erm, no I don't really like needles.

Oh sorry, I've just seen that it was your mum's carer, not that your mum was the carer. Hopefully they will find a carer willing to make a very small sacrifice for the benefit of their residents. Do you understand how many people in care homes have been killed because of staff bringing the virus in?

How about you employ the carer then to look after your mum have her at home and do it between you

If NHS or care staff don't want the vaccine (except for certified medical reasons) then they can resign.

I wouldn’t want anyone caring for my elderly or vulnerable relative that refused the vaccine for an unsubstantiated reason. E.g. conspiracy based

It would make me question their capacity to do their role if they can’t understand the basic science, and even more so that they don’t have the compassion about why vaccination uptake is so important

I wouldn’t want anyone caring for my elderly or vulnerable relative that refused the vaccine for an unsubstantiated reason. E.g. conspiracy based
Yet the OP is supposedly standing up for a carer who doesn't want the vaccine which baffles me.

You really can’t compare performing careful hygiene to injecting a vaccine into your body. The Covid-19 vaccine requires weighing up pros and cons of a medical procedure that could be detrimental to your own health, taking into account a range of factors that will vary from person to person.

I’m uncomfortable with the idea of people feeling forced to have a vaccine. However, on balance, I am more uncomfortable about the risks to very vulnerable people who often have zero say in the matter. They deserve to be protected. As others have said, this isn’t new. I did work experience one summer in a children’s hospital and had to prove my vaccine status or antibodies to hepatitis and chicken pox.

@jasjas1973 you cannot compare flu and covid as the latter is far more contagious.