Telegraph is reporting vaccine to be compulsory for care home workers

[bathsh3ba]

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/03/22/care-home-staff-face-compulsory-covid-vaccination/

I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea of making any vaccine compulsory....

Thoughts?

Then won’t have anything like the same access to all patients as staff, so not comparable at all.

Rubbish - it's totally comparable, you just don't want to see or hear it.

@millenialblush

Very slippery slope - travel next, then school. Just wait...

Good! Other countries make childhood vaccinations mandatory to attend schools (apart from medical exemptions). With the amount of stupid anti vaxxers there are nowadays and measles making a comeback I would welcome this. I bet the idiot brigade would get their children done quick sharp if the alternative was home schooling.

Rubbish - it's totally comparable, you just don't want to see or hear it.

Nope. You’re just in total denial clearly.

@MercyBooth

Fucking hypocritical coming from a Government that told the NHS to discharge infected patients back into care homes without testing.

Why? They have now corrected that, if you fuck up do you need to stay fucked up for ever more?

As if the crisis in care home staffing wasn't bad enough.
DD worked in a care home 6months ago -- no one asked to see what jabs were in her history.

Sort of compulsory sort of not mandatory in health care. Take up of annual flu jabs is often below 70% in NHS. As for yellow fever... often the countries don't check you at the border even if they claim they will, and obviously they can't turn away their own citizens who may never have had yellow fever jab.

There are ways around.

@TheKeatingFive

Rubbish - it's totally comparable, you just don't want to see or hear it.

Nope. You’re just in total denial clearly.

Either we are protecting those in care homes or we are not.

One unvaccinated, infected visitor can still infect the person they are there to see (who can then go on to infect others in the home). Sure the risk is lower than if it is a carer, but surely we should be doing everything we can to protect the inhabitants of care homes and it's not unreasonable to insist on people being vaccinated.

Or does that only apply to other people?

The vaccine isn’t being forced on anybody, they have complete freedom and right to choose not to have it - their body their choice.

People also need to acknowledge it is the right of the workplace/restaurant/airline to choose not to allow them entrance or give them shifts if they do not meet certain criteria.

This is for the protection of them, their families, and of course the patients they care for and the general public, otherwise what has this year of restrictions been for?

People still have bodily autonomy

Compulsory vaccination in the care sector will only mean a further decline in standards as decent carers leave and are replaced by those who are, at best, disinterested in the people they should be caring for. Even the price people pay for care doesn't guarantee an acceptable standard of adequate, reliable care now. Personally, I wouldn't want to put a sick dog into the care system in this country, never mind a loved family member. The only redeeming qualities of an underfunded, mismanaged, totally unfit-for-purpose system are the carers, the majority of whom at present go above and beyond on a daily basis. Yet it's quite clear that a very large number of posters on this thread think of them as scum who are doing a job that requires no special skills at all, simply because it's all they're fit for.

I sincerely hope some of you end your days in the hell-holes that many care homes have become, with your needs being attended to by the dregs of society. It's all you deserve.

to the carers on this thread who yet again have had it made clear to them that many people have nothing but contempt for them.

There are ways around

And there is no doubt the shittier care homes will find a way around it.

One unvaccinated, infected visitor can still infect the person they are there to see

Agree, but it’s a very different animal denying family access to a resident than it is to deny employment to someone. As visitors have effectively been banned for so long anyway and hospital sourced outbreaks only made up a percentage of them then currently the risk is with the staff. But of course that will change when visitors allowed back in, and then something needs to be done. But it’s a very different legal animal than making employment conditional on being vaccinated.

People still have bodily autonomy

If you are prevented from working or participating in society if you don't have a vaccine, trust me, you don't have bodily autonomy.

Either we are protecting those in care homes or we are not.

I have no issue with the same policy applied to visitors, if that’s what managers want to do to protect their inmates and staff.

However I totally understand they’d focus on staff first because they are far more of a risk to other inmates whether you care to acknowledge this or not.

I have no issue with the same policy applied to visitors, if that’s what managers want to do to protect their inmates and staff

Inmates?!

Sorry, distracted by another conversation

People still have bodily autonomy

Unfortunately that's not much use when you can't work or pay the bills.

100% behind it.

I don't think anybody is calling care staff scum, this seems a ridiculous overreaction .

Vaccinations being part of a job requirement is nothing new.
The only new thing is this vaccination and insisting that vaccinations happen for staff already employed.

@SinisterBumFacedCat

100% behind it.

I think that’s the thing, the vast majority will be, as th vast majority will get the vaccine themselves and are horrified by the deaths in care homes. Only a small percentage won’t be, snd thy either won’t be for th sake of it, or will be anti Vaxxers.

It’ll be a nightmare. Ive managed care Hines for years. Recruiting good quality staff is hard staff at the best of times. This is going to make it that much harder.

No other vaccines are compulsory for care staff, not on private homes anyway. Hep B is advised.

@BamboozledandBefuddled - thank you.

I must admit, I'm looking forward in a weird kind of way to the acrobatic thinking that will occur to blame care assistants still for home outbreaks when they're all vaccinated or gone if not, and unvaccinated visitors start coming in and an outbreak occurs.
I'm sure a way shall be found to blame us. We'll have probably brought it in on the air around us or something and then there'll be an insistence we never leave our place of work ever because we have a duty of care.

I do wonder how it will go down if care homes refuse places to unvaccinated/ unwilling to vaccinate residents in the future. It goes against every bit of my training to think that a resident be asked to leave or refused a place because of the right to a choice they make about their own bodies. Does the duty of care to the other vulnerable residents in the home stretch that far? It doesn't seem to apply to visitors.

@Gwynfluff

There are several vaccinations you must have had to work in healthcare - for example, Hepatitis B. You will be vaccinated for them by occupational health services as required.

@Gwynfluff - not in private care homes. Hep B is advised, not mandatory.

It needs to be done. Half of my DF's care home refused the vaccine. There was then an outbreak. One resident with dementia and the staff had to isolate and the whole home was locked down.

Of course you wont be forced to have the vaccine but honestly its selfish to say you want to continue with your caring role and not have the vaccine. Go and do something else if you feel so strongly about it.

@BamboozledandBefuddled - 100% agree. A residential school for children with learning disabilities near me has had to reduce from 52 weeks to 38 because they cannot recruit good quality care staff, this was before all this. I spent years as a residential home manager, staff recruitment is the worse part of the job.

@JingsMahBucket - what mandatory vaccinations. Over 20 years in care, never had a vaccine!

it's a 50/50 if I even receive my pcr result

You need to look into the procedures for how they're being sent. I've been on weekly swabs since June and have always received a result; I don't know anyone on regular testing who hasn't.

If you are prevented from working or participating in society if you don't have a vaccine, trust me, you don't have bodily autonomy

This is just hyperbole.

I agree with this! I work in a care home and we have a few staff who have refused.