Vaccines to be compulsory for front line medical staff

[bumbleymummy]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59215282

The covid vaccine, but not the flu vaccine. Although, I suppose the door has been opened for that one now too. They’re being given until spring. I wonder if there will be a massive walk out before winter. If you thought you were going to lose your job come spring, why would you work your ass off all winter? This could majorly backfire.

I don't think that there should be mandatory vaccinations for NHS staff -it was not part of the terms when they were employed and therefore it should not apply now.

Why can’t they do antibody tests to see if people even need it?

They do this for the hepatitis vaccine for hcps.

@twelly if you were frontline staff you weren’t allowed to start the course without Hep a and b. You don’t see a patient for the first 6 months of training.

This is no big deal, we’ve had mandatory vaccines for donkeys years. I’d like to see flu added as well. It makes no sense to have patients infected by staff.

If any of you had a baby clinging onto life in an incubator you wouldn’t want a nurse spreading flu or covid to infect them.

Fluffycloudland77 You do realise the vaccine doesn’t stop transmission don’t you so I would rather my baby have a caring nhs worker there to care full stop rather than not receiving the care because of a staff shortage. We cannot eliminate risk but to get rid of workers when the nhs is already understaffed is insane and dangerous!

Hmm, let's see if this actually becomes an issue for NHS staffing when push comes to shove - or a non issue. I don't think it'll be the thing that breaks the NHS. Another one who will pop back to the thread in a few months' time.

Side effects from the hep A and B vaccines are minimal to non-existent. Their long-term safety and efficacy is a known quantity. And from what I can tell, they do effectively prevent infection and therefore reduce transmission. None of that is true of any of the currently-available covid vaccines.

If they're going to fire people over a requirement that has no scientifically-proven link to patient welfare, they don't get to turn around and expect everyone else to modify their activities because they're short-staffed.

@Hairbrush123

Apparently 2/3rd of French healthcare workers were vaccinated and Macron made it mandatory from there on for healthcare workers to be vaccinated and less than 1% left their job because of it

Yeah but I would hazard a guess that the French world class healthcare system is a much nicer organisation to work for than our long underfunded beleaguered NHS. For many people this will be the last straw.

@ADreadedSunnyDay

NRFT but I don't think mandatory vaccines are the way to go. It is the thin end of the wedge tbh. Who should decide what medical treatments and interventions a person has - certainly not the government. Frankly it's an appalling loss of human rights and bodily autonomy. I can't believe people are relaxed about this just because it's Covid. Once precedent is set all sorts of potential things can become mandatory, and not just for adults, for children too

This. I'm astounded by how few people see it this way.

Will nobody look at the bigger picture?!

Midwife here looking after covid + mums daily, I have no problem with it being a requirement. I don’t know of anyone in my unit who hasn’t had it.
I hate the politicisation of vaccines, when I joined the nhs it was completely normal for occupational health to screen and provide necessary vaccines.

It makes no sense to have patients infected by staff.

A vaccinated staff member could still infect a patient.

If any of you had a baby clinging onto life in an incubator you wouldn’t want a nurse spreading flu or covid to infect them.

No, I wouldn’t. Which is why it would make more sense to require regular staff testing regardless of vaccine status.

There are two separate issues here. The vaccines themselves and the loss of rights over your own body.

Regardless of what people think about these particular vaccines I think the bigger focus needs to be on the loss of body autonomy. If they can mandate one treatment they can mandate another.

@FlorenciaFlora

There are two separate issues here. The vaccines themselves and the loss of rights over your own body.

Regardless of what people think about these particular vaccines I think the bigger focus needs to be on the loss of body autonomy. If they can mandate one treatment they can mandate another.

There are two issues, but it's not always so easy to separate them. Here, the vaccine appears to do little to nothing to reduce transmission, so it's easy enough to look at it and say that it's wrong to compel people to get it when there's basically zero benefit to others from doing so. But if it made a real difference - if it basically guaranteed that a person wouldn't get covid and therefore couldn't infect their patients - I think that would be a more difficult argument.

If the Government can afford to lose any healthcare staff then there is no pandemic! If there is, therefore, no pandemic there is no need to force jabs on health care workers.

Trust me, it will be anyone working in public spaces next! No one will be safe.

I will not be jabbed. My body, my choice!

🤦🏻‍♀️ Testing doesn’t stop transmission either. I’ve seen two patients have covid with regular testing of all staff and visitors testing negative.

It’s only because they were fully vaccinated we didn’t lose them.

@Fluffycloudland77

🤦🏻‍♀️ Testing doesn’t stop transmission either. I’ve seen two patients have covid with regular testing of all staff and visitors testing negative.

It’s only because they were fully vaccinated we didn’t lose them.

I mean, you have to actually pay attention to the test results. You can't just test people and then send them on their way regardless, and self-reported results for visitors are fraught with potential problems.

Testing may not be 100%, but a negative test is exponentially more likely to be correct than the assumption that a person is vaccinated and therefore must not have covid. The question isn't whether either approach is perfect: it's whether an asymptomatic person is less likely to have covid, and therefore be able to spread covid, at any given moment if they're vaccinated. Until that's been clearly established, assertions that people are harming others by remaining unvaccinated are factually and scientifically baseless. What little real research has been done on the topic suggests a negligible difference, if any.

@Lostinacloud it’s awful. What is the actual end goal? :(

@Fluffycloudland77

🤦🏻‍♀️ Testing doesn’t stop transmission either. I’ve seen two patients have covid with regular testing of all staff and visitors testing negative.

It’s only because they were fully vaccinated we didn’t lose them.

It’s not a guarantee but neither is the vaccine. At least you have the possibility of detecting cases in vaccinated people too.

@PurpleOkapi put it much better :)

Making a distinction between staff in care homes and staff in the NHS would never have felt fair. If care home staff must have it, NHS staff should too. If anything the NHS should lead the way.

@bumbleymummy

I agree *@lemmein*, it’s easy to get sidetracked.

As has been pointed out, you’re not a risk to your patients if you’re not infected. So regular staff testing would make more sense irt keeping patients safe.

As would isolating when you are exposed to the virus and know it, as in when you have a confirmed case at home, regardless of vaccination status because it does not stop transmission 100%. As of August you can be working with vulnerable people, be double jabbed, have a confirmed positive case at home and are required to go to work anyway, until you test positive yourself, on an LFT, which we know miss cases, even when people have symptoms. And decide to stay at home because you are obviously a risk? Well that means you're absent and can face the concequences of that, because there's no requirement to SI if you're in contact with a positive case any longer. I do wonder why there hasn't been more about this absolute obvious risk? If it's really about protecting the vulnerable then surely this would be a sensible way of doing that? Alongside ensuring that all users and visitors to the service are also vaccinated before entering - but there's no requirement for that at all. I am required to go to work when I have a positive case languishing at home, I am required to give personal care to someone who's chosen not to be vaccinated and I'm required to let in visitors whether vaccinated or not. If it truly were about protecting the vulnerable then all those things would and should be in place, alongside decent PPE instead of aprons you can see through, and paper masks.

@2boysDad

I work in the NHS. Not "frontline" but I do walk through parts of the hospitals where there are patients, it's impossible not to. Some of those patients are clearly ill, they're having a coffee before they have their chemo appt etc.

There is no part of a hospital where you can "avoid" patients, so I would regard all NHS staff as frontline unless they 100% work from home.

I agree with mandatory vaccination for all NHS staff as do all my colleagues who I have spoken to on this issue. The health of patients comes first, end of discussion.

I'm sure the one's who disagree will make a lot of noise - they'll be all over threads like this as they always are but.......... when push comes to shove, I reckon almost all of them will get the jab. This is what happened in France and it's what will happen here.

And for the ones who don't?

I'm sure there will be vacancies at their local homeothapy clinic that they will be well suited for.

Agree with your comments about frontline. I would like all staff to be treated the same. Even if you can avoid direct contact with patients in a hospital you can’t necessarily avoid contact with frontline staff.

Where's next after this? Because if they start on my line of work then I"m leaving.

This will cause a tsunami of staff loss I reckon.

That's probably what the Tories want though. Another way to run the NHS into the ground with an added bonus of being able to point the finger of blame at the NHS staff 'anti vaxxers'.

Totally support NHS staff being vaccinated - and I know two (one family member, one close friend) NHS staff who still have not had their jabs. We don't discuss it but it disappoints me.

If this was a virus that killed mainly children (rather than the elderly and vulnerable), I wonder if NHS staff would still be walking away from their jobs rather than getting jabbed?

I have had both my vaccines and booster is booked to but ieft social care today due to the under payment of the job and working conditions. I would happily now work in a shop or anywhere away from the care sector. They ask so much of staff but so little in return. Social care is already on its knees and come Thursday it will be not able to cope anymore