Mandatory vaccines for care workers now law.

[MercyBooth]

Big Brother Watch
@BigBrotherWatch
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Police cars revolving lightBREAKING

Mandatory vaccines for care workers is now law. Millions more workers will be affected.

The House of Lords passed the new law after just 90 minutes debate, with a regret motion noting there is insufficient evidence for it and that the severity of impact is unknown.

twitter.com/BigBrotherWatch/status/1417573871130234883?s=20

@MaxNormal

This has been the law for a lot of other vaccinations such as the flu vaccine and the hepatitis vaccine

Incorrect. No vaccine is mandated by law for anyone currently in the UK. Hep B is a hospital trust policy issue and flu vaccination has never been obligatory.

obligatory if you want a job

Carers should be able to claim unemployment benefits if they are unable to continue in their work due to vaccination status.

The number of people ready to do it will plummet. And a lot of people will do it just to avoid being sanctioned for UC.

Yes it's a huge problem - and has been for years. Of course many are motivated and decent regardless, but seriously do people really want to put the lives of their loved ones (or themselves) in the 'care' of someone who doesn't want to be there doing that job. Quite terrifying. I'd certainly prefer Dignitas to that (although it's not the only reason for my future choice - I want a good death).

Wrt vaccinated status. I can't be the only person who would take legal action if the duty of care was failed. Obviously anyone with the money, not dependent on state care, will vote with their feet - and choose the home that can offer the reassurance and peace of mind of fully vaccinated staff. But, if a family member was unnecessarily put at risk, by being helplessly 'cared' for by unvaccinated staff, you bet I'd sue. And I wouldn't be the only one.

What if they were shoddily cared for by someone who was vaccinated?

You do realise being vaccinated against Covid isnt the only pre requisite for being a good carer.

And how would you be able to prove it? If visitors to the home dont have to be vaccinated a resident could easily catch it that way. Plus someone vaccinated can still pass it on.

And the only lawyers ive noticed sharpening their pencils are the human rights ones!

@Iquitit has explained quite eloquently several times why that simplistic scenario is ridiculous.

Under my previous username i remember saying back in April 2020 that care workers would get no thanks and should walk.

But i take no pleasure in being proved right.

Unlike those who predicted last winters lockdown!!

Shoddy care (which includes unvaccinated staff) is bad full stop. As I say in my post above, we shouldn't be leaving our most vulnerable to the 'care' of potentially unmotivated, reluctant, and sometimes downright resentful staff - who are only there because they're forced to by the jobcentre. It's something I've long spoken about under different names on various forums and in real life. It's a vitally important job - and pay and working conditions should reflect that.

People are told to stop or never start smoking (despite the net gain smoking brings to the national economy). Why? To end up 'cared' for, as the setup is now?

I plan to go to dignitas when my time is up, but it's not an option everyone wants (and it's expensive). We need a decent care system.

Fully vaccinated staff is one part of it. One need doesn't negate the others.

If it's not safe care, it's not care.

One thing's for sure. It's not good enough to say, oh well, the care setup is bad anyway so it doesn't matter if we make it even more unsafe.

Well if the Government cared about care home residents they would take care work out of the remit of Job Centres altogether. Just to make sure that no one unsuitable ended up caring for vulnerable residents.
If the Government cared about vulnerable residents they would do this.
But they wont. Which tells you all you need to know!!

On a related note, ministers were considering increasing NI contributions to help meet care costs. Then some moaned that the elderly don't pay NI. Except that they did. 40-50 years of paying their taxes (and this is the smoking generation, so including hefty sums from that...until they gave up). They've paid more than their fair share.

If people don't want to fund good, decent, and safe care, perhaps we need to stop telling people not to smoke. It's a win win (plus stress relief). Less demand for care + huge net gain to the tax coffers.

Well yes I agree with you on that Mercy.

I remember the days (pre Blair) when jobcentres were just that. Completely separate building from the DSS offices. People went into jobcentres, to look at a variety of decent jobs. Claiming benefits was unrelated. Better system.

@Tealightsandd

Shoddy care (which includes unvaccinated staff) is bad full stop. As I say in my post above, we shouldn't be leaving our most vulnerable to the 'care' of potentially unmotivated, reluctant, and sometimes downright resentful staff - who are only there because they're forced to by the jobcentre. It's something I've long spoken about under different names on various forums and in real life. It's a vitally important job - and pay and working conditions should reflect that.

People are told to stop or never start smoking (despite the net gain smoking brings to the national economy). Why? To end up 'cared' for, as the setup is now?

I plan to go to dignitas when my time is up, but it's not an option everyone wants (and it's expensive). We need a decent care system.

Fully vaccinated staff is one part of it. One need doesn't negate the others.

But that's the thing, as I've said in a pp, currently the only 'entry requirements' are a clean DBS (and that doesn't mean you have a clean record because that changed some time ago, certain offences are exempt now) and a covid vaccination. For caring for the most vulnerable in society. Hardly enough to ensure good quality care is delivered consistently.

People are pushed into applying for and accepting care work because they are sanctioned if not, and employers are taking them because they care very little for the residents they're getting paid to provide care for and they just need the hours filled, and even then it's the bare minimum staffing they can get away with.
That's going to get worse if the predicted 10% leave or are sacked.

And why only covid? When talking about vaccination, is someone more dead from covid than flu? Both sweep through care homes and take lives and put the NHS under pressure.

As I've said, I'm all for vaccination being introduced across care, it's long overdue and the service users and staff deserve protection. What I'm not all for is the way this has been done, after care being thrown under the bus and about to be again during covid, because it's clear that it's been done so the government can say "Look what we did to protect the vulnerable though!" When nasty questions are asked of the way they've handled social care through covid and before.

And no, one does not negate the other, quite right. It's not good enough for people to say that the issues social care have faced aren't as important as having all staff vaccinated when in some cases they are equally if not more important.

And how would you be able to prove it? If visitors to the home dont have to be vaccinated a resident could easily catch it that way. Plus someone vaccinated can still pass it on.

It doesn't need proof, people will blame the care staff anyway, no matter how many vaccinations they've had. Boris already said that care workers, weren't 'doing all they could' when untested patients were discharged into care homes and it spread like wildfire, and with no PPE and providers bleating that they couldn't afford it*, there were comments here and on other sm saying that care workers were 'being allowed to kill our family' because they had children at school (so we could work!) Or went shopping.
Care workers are being discredited time and again so they can be the scapegoat when things go wrong and no one thinks twice about it.

*If care was being run properly then how could PPE not be afforded all of a sudden? PPE should be used on every person, the only extra cost should have been masks, and even then a stock of those should have been in place for illnesses like c-diff and norovirus as they are airborne and should have been standard PPE for those caring for people with those illnesses.
I understand there was a shortage, and that some places had their deliveries diverted to the NHS, but my point is that some care providers insisted they couldn't afford it, well that's not good enough, they're fond of saying they're running a business when it comes to staffing and pay, so then they're also running a business when it comes to having to pay out for more PPE due to a pandemic, it's part and parcel of it and they should have been prepared to do so, many weren't which is why it's now supplied to many care homes foc. Well foc for the business, the tax payers are paying for it when it should be part of the basic package of care that people pay for.

@ZednotZee

How selfish of you.

In terms of my right to retain my individual bodily autonomy under any and all circumstances thats not quite the insult you think it is.

Its not to protect me, you're right. I am expected to risk my health in order to provide and extra layer of protection to those who have already been vaccinated, should they choose to be.

Simply because I am a nurse the health of my patients does not and never will supercede mine in my list of priorities.

Its just not happening.

I agree. This is wrong. If the vaccine was well tested and proven safe, that would a different matter, though still a slippery slope. But forcing people to take a vaccination when nobody knows what long term effects it might have is a very different issue.

@Tealightsandd

On a related note, ministers were considering increasing NI contributions to help meet care costs. Then some moaned that the elderly don't pay NI. Except that they did. 40-50 years of paying their taxes (and this is the smoking generation, so including hefty sums from that...until they gave up). They've paid more than their fair share.

If people don't want to fund good, decent, and safe care, perhaps we need to stop telling people not to smoke. It's a win win (plus stress relief). Less demand for care + huge net gain to the tax coffers.

Do you have any figures to support the claim that the elderly have more than paid their fair share of NI? I'd be interested to see some proof of this, especially given that all age cohorts will include people who didn't work much and thus paid very little.

My lovely aunt died from Covid, caught in her care home.

I think all care workers should get vaccinated. I'm very uncomfortable with forcing them to if they wish to keep their jobs.

People are pushed into applying for and accepting care work because they are sanctioned if not, and employers are taking them because they care very little for the residents they're getting paid to provide care for and they just need the hours filled, and even then it's the bare minimum staffing they can get away with.

You are pushing a certain view of care homes, which may be your experience of where you have worked; but not all are like that.

Ime, the ones run by charities do care for the residents, because they are not running a business and there is no profit motive. DD is in a care home, where she gets 1:1 care for all her waking hours, and 1:4 at night. Other residents, because of their behaviour may get 2:1, 3:1 or even 4:1. I'd hardly call that the bare minimum staffing? Do you know how much it costs - although DD gets continuing health care funding; and those who don't, will be funded by their local authority?

Iirc, the initial training program is 17 days, and then they do shadowing for a while. However, they get back up from onsite clinical psychologists, social workers, GPs, clinical specialist nurses, mental health nurses, learning disability nurses, speech and language therapists, OTs, and physiotherapists. For instance, if DD's behaviour is getting worse, they will seek advice from the Positive Behaviour Support Team.

However, I do think care workers should be vaccinated. The rest of us have had to take a leap of faith, because we can't see any other way out of this pandemic (apart from letting it rip through the population); and if we have had to swallow any misgivings, then I don't know why anti vaxxers are more special and they put all of us at risk. As for talking about "We want control over what we put in our bodies!" - what about particulates from diesel vehicles, pollution in the air, sewage discharges into seas and rivers, nuclear power, pesticides, antibiotics in farming.....I take it you all eat organic produce?

@FriedasCarLoad

My lovely aunt died from Covid, caught in her care home.

I think all care workers should get vaccinated. I'm very uncomfortable with forcing them to if they wish to keep their jobs.

Then that's very similar to many medical staff needing to have Hep B testing, which is already happening; no outcry about that.

@Intercity225

Yes I do eat organic produce almost without exception.
When covid became prevalent I switched to a ketogenic diet as I had researched and found it to be somewhat protective against the virus.
I have nursed in an extremely hands on manner throughout two outbreaks of covid, in PPE which the RCN later, incredibly helpfully have stated is wholly unfit for purpose; I have never tested positive, nor do I have covid antibodies which would indicate asymptomatic infection.

It is increasingly obvious that covid isn't an indiscriminate virus. We clearly are not all susceptible to it, I would wager that we shall come to learn that it does in fact target a specific genotype. Hence why the effects of it are so disparate between individuals, ranging from asymptomatic infection to death.
So a blanket mandation of the vaccine for a particular group is patently unfair.

I live in a less affluent area and drive an older car/take UK holidays as I prioritise the food which the family eats. I prioritise our health status above well, pretty much anything really.

So you can perhaps appreciate, given my overall lifestyle why I object to taking a relatively new vaccine simply because I am managing a nursing home for a living.

Though as previously stated I do have a new job offer which will allow me to WFH, unvaccinated.

Most carers don't have that luxury which is entirely why the SC sector has been targeted. Professionals are distinctly in the minority unfortunately.

It’s usual for HCP to have mandatory vaccines to keep their patients safe. It also keeps the nutters out!

Actually the only mandatory vaccine which I have ever had to have was for HepB.

Which has been in use since 1986 and was wholly for my benefit.

I do wish people would refrain from making this flawed comparison, its almost as if you can't comprehend the concept of an erroneous premise.

@ZednotZee I am
A HCP