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...

I can only assume people saying "good" or "if it were my parents they were looking after I'd want them to be vaccinated" don't have much experience of care work. People aren't queuing up to look after your elderly parents, they're not queuing up to be hit by your auntie with dementia. The care industry has one of the lowest staff retention numbers. I think its disgusting to go after this sector first, low paid and undervalued, often treated terribly with expectations that do not match pay or prestige of the role.

I'm not in favour of mandatory vaccinations generally - you should not be compelled to have a medical intervention that you don't want (but not for some silly reason like it has a nanochip in it or similar nonsense).

However I think there's a case for anyone being admitted to a care home to be vaccinated on entry if they're not already vaccinated. People should take responsibility for their own health.

I agree that if you make it mandatory for carers, some may just leave. But you have to be a special brand of stupid to work with elderly and vulnerable people and not be vaccinated if you don't have medical reasons not to.

Agree you should be able to opt out of AZ. I had it and was fine, but I can understand why people would prefer one of the others and if you are making it effectively compulsory you have to give people the choice.

@Bargebill19

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.

The vaccine has been proven to reduce serious illness and hospitalisation by up to 90+%(depending on vaccine type and which variant ) . How is it doing that if not by lessening the severity of infections?

There is some uncertainty with regards to the new delta variant but we should know for sure that the vaccines work well enough with that within a week or two when we see if large numbers of people are getting very ill or dying from the increased infections we are seeing now. I personally think this is unlikely to happen but we can't be absolutely sure yet

As a pp poster said you are undermining your argument by saying stuff like this. I can see what arguments there are against making vaccines compulsory for a subset of the population. I am not sure what my opinion on this is but your post has already almost gone in my ' ignore' pile because of this complete fabrication and/or misunderstanding of the facts.

As for your second argument that you would need to vaccinate everyone not just pick but on care staff, that is a more convincing argument but you could say that care staff have much closer contact with care him residents than the vast majority of visitors . I still think this argument is a strong one though. Either it is compulsory for everyone in the country ( who has no medically advised contraindications) or for noone makes sense to me.

Don't forget that it's just not carers who work in care homes. Management, nurses, domestic staff, maintenance, and kitchen staff.

BettyBurntBuns
Very few people make the decision to place a relative in a nursing home lightly.
If you can tell me how to care for a frail, demented parent (or 2) 24/7 for years and work full time to afford housing and food for my children I would be delighted to hear it.

I don't agree with this, I believe it is unethical and possibly counter productive.

Once we have anti-vaccine martyrs in the news it will create more resistance to the vaccine.

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

this ^^^

And this

I think this is a dodgy route to be going down. Where will it stop? Who else will be threatened with job lost without a vaccine? Why just covid vaccine? Are care home staff forced to have the flu vaccine? What about all those parents who refuse to vaccinate their children for all the other diseases/illnesses out there are they going to make them mandatory too? We are suppose to live in a free country where we are allowed to make our own decisions we are blindly walking into an authoritarian society.

It's just unbelievable to target this sector when the gov failed to ensure adequate PPE supplies and allowed un tested residents to be discharged from hospital back into care homes .

And the vaccination rate in many London boroughs is low -
51% single dose .30% double where I live ,
47% single 27% double where my son works in a school with autistic children .He's 27 ,has been trying to book for a vac and told no slots available .

Why not make it compulsory for all school staff ???All customer facing staff ? Bus drivers ,security staff ,retail assistants ,GPs ,...

It's just unbelievable to target this sector when the gov failed to ensure adequate PPE supplies and allowed un tested residents to be discharged from hospital back into care homes .

This

@HSHorror

I think it's the right call however They need to ensure availability of choice of vax. As I really dont think AZ should be mandatory for anyone. Also there is a question on how often people might have to be vaxxed? And what about people who then get side effects every time. Ive been fine with second AZ just slight headache for an evening. But some might feel rough maybe. And - what about people due a booster who are then pregnant etc. ...

No way. People need to see fb covid 19 vaccine victim and families first before they force anything on anyone. The stories there are horrendous. When is there going to be a thorough investigation of just what is going on here.

If the vaccines are so effective, why do the vaccinated fear the unvaccinated?

And how will claims for constructive dismissal from care staff who have lost their jobs through not being vaccinated in time/at all ,be dealt with ?

So many referring to it as "going after" or "targeting" care workers... that sounds very much like anti-vax rhetoric as it assumes the vaccine would be harmful.

As long as they have a choice of a vaccine (i.e. no one is forced to take AZ) and the tiny minority with a genuine medical reason are exempt, then there's really no reason for someone working with the most vulnerable to not take a vaccination millions of people have taken throughout the world. Why would anyone working in such a high risk environment not want to have the vaccine to protect themselves and others? And if not then maybe they need to find a new job.

@looptheloopinahulahoop

I'm not in favour of mandatory vaccinations generally - you should not be compelled to have a medical intervention that you don't want (but not for some silly reason like it has a nanochip in it or similar nonsense).

However I think there's a case for anyone being admitted to a care home to be vaccinated on entry if they're not already vaccinated. People should take responsibility for their own health.

I agree that if you make it mandatory for carers, some may just leave. But you have to be a special brand of stupid to work with elderly and vulnerable people and not be vaccinated if you don't have medical reasons not to.

Agree you should be able to opt out of AZ. I had it and was fine, but I can understand why people would prefer one of the others and if you are making it effectively compulsory you have to give people the choice.

Well you contradicted yourself in your first two paragraphs People should take responsibility for their own health

Those of us that are worried about serious side effects of these experimental vaccines do take responsibility for our own health.
My ‘own health’ costs me a fortune in treatments and good quality supplements .
I would not squander my own health lightly on something I’m not able to put my trust in.
I would not want any procedure against my will and that includes these vaccines
Forcing people to do this to put food on the table is a step too far.

With regards to the comparisons with HCPs and hep b vaccine...

How long had this vaccine been in use before it became compulsory for HCPs to have it?

What is the side effect/death risk profile of the hep b vaccine?

Is hep b an equally serious threat to all age categories who catch it?

Once there is enough data to compile a properly evidenced based list of contraindications and indications for all the covid vaccines (none of this "we can't see any reason why it would be a problem for X group"), and if there is no punitive actions against any health worker who has any of those contraindications or cautions listed, then I think it would be reasonable to consider it be a compulsory vaccine, bit until then this is absolutely unacceptable treatment of staff.

Should read contraindications and cautions

If the vaccines are so effective, why do the vaccinated fear the unvaccinated?

I mean, after a year and a half of Covid, how does anyone still think that individual actions can’t affect vast swathes of people, even if those people aren’t themselves vulnerable?

Ask schoolkids what they had to fear from Covid when the disease didn’t affect them badly?

Ask business owners what they had to fear from an unsuppressed virus?

Ask any of us longing to see our family abroad why we’re worried if too many people remain unvaccinated?

But also: no vaccine is 100%, and some people will remain vulnerable despite vaccination.

And also: the more the virus circulates, the more opportunities we give it to mutate, and the greater the risk of vaccine escape (and we’ve seen the impact of even partial vaccine escape.)

So are people allergic to the vaccine or unable to have it for medical reasons expected to lose their minimum wage job? And then presumably be unable to sign on as they refused the vaccine?

And if take up is currently 87% where are they going to find 13% new workforce? Most care homes are already understaffed.

I think its the right thing to do TBH.Most of us have had our Vaccines .Some of the most fragile people live at Care homes . The virus will spread through everyone and be a major health risk otherwise

It's the thin end of the wedge, taking bodily autonomy away from people, what next compulsory sterilisation for people on benefits or to get benefits? I am double jabbed by the way so am not an anti vaxxer. They are going for the lowest paid first, if they want workers to be compulsory jabbed, why not force the jab on members of Parliament first & see how they like it?

I am unbelievably angry at this. The sector who bravely bore the pandemic at the start on appalling pay and with no PPE.

These vaccines are still under trial and for a small minority are not safe. There isn’t even a decent vaccine compensation scheme.

Neither do we know longer term what mRNA vaccines do.

I hope they all leave and the sector will collapse.

This is disgraceful

Very telling that the government wish to mandate the vaccine for social care staff but not NHS staff.
The cynic in me tells me that this is most likely because we are a supposedly easy target due to our perceived lower educational attainment, socioeconomic status and employment prospects.
Once they have forced us to have the vaccine then can use us as a shining example to mandate it for almost everybody 🙄
To be very clear; the government do not care about the effects of recruitment, nor retention of social care staff. They verifiably want the whole sector to appear to be an absolute shambles so that we can continue to be a watertight scapegoat for their wholly ineffectual management of the situation which led to the death of so many vulnerable people.
I am an RGN with a first class honours degree and over a decade of experience in the sector. I shall be leaving my job if I am mandated to take this vaccine. I am not you easy target Hancock, shame on you.

@ZednotZee
Well said. I'm an NHS clinician and think this is appalling.