Vaccination to be mandatory for care home staff

[Horseyhorsey3]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/15/covid-jabs-to-become-mandatory-for-care-home-staff-in-england

It will be interesting to see how this affects retention and recruitment of staff... Or not...

@GentlemanJackie

I agree with *@HSHorror* AZ is an unacceptably risky vaccine to make compulsory. I hope the over 40s have a choice and also that they get paid time off to get the vaccine and to recover from side effects. I know in many (most?) cases they won’t. The carers who looked after my grandmother were on zero hours contracts, they were unpaid between each 10 minute appointment in different houses and they had no pension provision. They had to pay for their own bus fares between jobs. Then long bus rides home because they couldn’t afford to live in the area where they worked. Forcing them to take a vaccine with known risks seems appalling if they are not supported financially for any loss of income due to side effects.

Which leads me to wonder how are they going to handle the ones that refuse? Are they going to count them as voluntarily unemployed and sanction them?

[quote Glasstabletop]@MrsKeats

It's cowardly to go after care home staff first. A sector that is underpaid, treated terribly and un-unionised. It's a cynical tactic to test the water before they go after the heavily unionised NHS staff.

Nobody should be coerced into a medical procedure they don't want.[/quote]
This

I only know one carer
Young, healthy, strong as an ox - which is obviously helpful
Really looks after her carees

She said from the start she would quit if forced to have the vaccine but she goes to people's homes through an agency so I wonder if this applies to her? Maybe her clients will employ her directly?

@Tatum1234

Good. If they don’t want the vaccination they can find a different job. If my parents were in a care home I’d want the people looking after them to be vaccinated.

Well quite because working in a care home is such a sought after high-status highly paid profession isn't it🙄 They won't do it, staff will leave and there isn't a queue of people waiting to fill vacancies👀

@Ostara212

I only know one carer Young, healthy, strong as an ox - which is obviously helpful Really looks after her carees

She said from the start she would quit if forced to have the vaccine but she goes to people's homes through an agency so I wonder if this applies to her? Maybe her clients will employ her directly?

The article is unclear. It says care home staff but then conflates that with social care staff. I can't see why it would be care home staff and not dom care (what your friend does).

Covid vaccinations neither stops transmission between people or makes it less serious when transmitted.

Vaccination stops the majority of transmission by those who have been vaccinated but caught the disease. It also provides good (but not always great) protection against catching Covid from an infected person. So when it comes to ‘stopping transmission between people’, if both those people are fully vaccinated the high likelihood is that transmission will be prevented, even if one is in the minority who catches the virus.

And as you said, being vaccination is a strong protection against serious illness and death.

We’ve got to get away from the misleading ‘it doesn’t stop transmission’. In the majority of cases it does.

@MercyBooth

So if someone was signing on getting UC and the only job on offer was a care home job, would it be vaccinate or lose your benefits? Because the JC DO NOT CARE whether or not the unsuitable person they force into a care home is the right person to look after your gran or not The Government dont either.

Thereby turning care homes into forced labour camps😶 that will go down well Perhaps we could have prisoners working in care homes 50p an hour and force them to be vaccinated too

It's a cynical tactic to test the water before they go after the heavily unionised NHS staff
Yes.
(Is there any possibility it could backfire and prompt them to start unionising?)

Covid vaccinations neither stops transmission between people or makes it less serious when transmitted

This is completely untrue on both counts @Bargebill19

There's definitely a debate to be had but don't back your point of view with false statements....

So if it is the only job they can find to do, why would they quit if they have to have a vaccine?

Vaccines have been virtually or compulsory for different jobs for years

2020 clap for key workers.
2021 crap on key workers.

Great news. Anybody working with the elderly or vulnerable should be vaccinated.

It hasn’t been proved that it lessens the severity of infections - if it really does so that, then why have all these covid rules about distancing, masks, limiting contact, isolation if infected, ppe etc? If vaccinations truly make the virus less virulent and dangerous - there wouldn’t be a problem in just treating like you would any cold.

How can you tell if covid is brought in by a staff member who is vaccinated, or a non vaccinated volunteer or family or friend or nhs staff or by a resident (vaccinated or not) who went outside to a hospital appointment or family day out? You can’t. So if staff have to be vaccinated, so should everyone else. Especially if you believe that a vaccine renders the virus to become less virulent or less transmittable. It’s either mandatory FOR ALL or not at all.

Anybody who refuses the vaccine without a sound medical reason should pay an extra 10p in the £ income tax to cover the cost of their selfishness

It hasn’t been proved that it lessens the severity of infections - if it really does so that, then why have all these covid rules about distancing, masks, limiting contact, isolation if infected, ppe etc? If vaccinations truly make the virus less virulent and dangerous - there wouldn’t be a problem in just treating like you would any cold.

@Bargebill19 of course it has

It has been proven that vaccination reduces severity of illness, risk of transmission and viral load. The viral load a person is exposed to is one of the strongest predictors of how ill they will get, beyond their own individual risk factors

we still have restrictions in place because of the vast amount of people who are either non or partially vaccinated, and because there are some of whom vaccination will fail

@freeez

Great news. Anybody working with the elderly or vulnerable should be vaccinated.

As care workers are working in close contact with people who are often in and out of hospitals (likely to be high risk environments for Covid long term, just as they are for infections all the time), and social distancing is not possible as part of their job, vaccination for care workers' own protection seems reasonable.

There should be a choice of vaccination (depending on age and clinical need), and there should be considerable effort put into understanding vaccine hesitancy.

Equally, it is reasonable to require that all those living in care homes be vaccinated, for the setting's safety, and that anyone moved into a care home who is not vaccinated is appropriately isolated until at least the first vaccination has taken place. Certainly in 'ye olde days', it was routine for boarding school pupils etc to be vaccinated against common epidemic diseases.

While making it 'mandatory immediately' is problematic, i do think that we should be moving towards a situation where care home work is aligned with some medical work, and e.g. some travel destinations, in requiring specific vaccinations.

@freeez

Great news. Anybody working with the elderly or vulnerable should be vaccinated.

Why do they need to be if we just vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable instead?

It hasn’t been proved that it lessens the severity of infections - if it really does so that, then why have all these covid rules about distancing, masks, limiting contact, isolation if infected, ppe etc? If vaccinations truly make the virus less virulent and dangerous - there wouldn’t be a problem in just treating like you would any cold.

Because the policy response in the UK is that restrictions should apply to all until no longer needed.

Different approaches in different countries - for example in the US the CDC advice is that fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear masks in most settings.

Why do they need to be if we just vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable instead?

sadly the elderly and CEV are the ones for who the vaccine is most likely to have a low efficacy for

@MercyBooth you have nailed it

According to the Times its NHS and care Home staff.

Which leads me to wonder how are they going to handle the ones that refuse? Are they going to count them as voluntarily unemployed and sanction them?

I'll come back and let you know when I get the sack.

Oh well, over 30 years in the NHS and I'm reduced to the shit somebody brought in on their shoe. I think I do my job reasonably well so it's loss.to the NHS as.well as myself.

I shall be contacting my Union first thing

Some people on here will be pleased. I've already had a delightful poster tell me the other day that I deserved to be sacked (never had a complaint or disciplinary in my 3 decades of service)that I was a numpty and i should be ashamed of myself.

Funny that, only 12 months ago I was a hero

@stressfuljune

Vaccines have been virtually or compulsory for different jobs for years

Not true - even NHS staff can refuse any vaccination as long as they sign a waiver, here's one from Southern Health Trust...

Why do they need to be if we just vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable instead?

Likely to have the greatest proportion of people for whom the vaccination is ineffective in these groups - long experience shows that immune response to vaccines tends to reduce with age. Early in the vaccine development / roll-out, I know there was great celebration at the relatively decent (compared with e.g. flu vaccination) immune response to the vaccine in the elderly - but it is still not as high as in younger people.

@ollyollyoxenfree

Why do they need to be if we just vaccinate the elderly and vulnerable instead?

sadly the elderly and CEV are the ones for who the vaccine is most likely to have a low efficacy for

By the same token it could be argued that young people the ones with the most to lose if there are long-term side effects from the vaccine

Good. Needs to be a condition of employment in the NHS too.