Will the Government actually follow through on their threat to sack NHS staff?

[DontWantTheRivalry]

I work in a very large city hospital, we are also a specialist trauma centre with Helipad access (just to give you an idea of how large a hospital it is).

I found out yesterday that almost 13% of the medical staff are unvaccinated.

Surely that number of staff can’t just be fired? How do they expect a hospital to function with such a mass exodus whilst already dealing with staff shortages in nearly every department.

It’s very worrying.

I think you find mandating will work to reduce that percentage down significantly. It won’t be that 13% are against vaccinations either some people need rules to change their behaviour. If there is no guidelines they will get around to it on their timeline.

It's pretty unlikely that an unvaccinated midwife would be transferred to a ventilation unit , a covid ward is not the same.

It's pretty unlikely that an unvaccinated midwife would be transferred to a ventilation unit , a covid ward is not the same.

And who cares about all the poor women in the maternity unit having horrendous labours and potentially losing their babies due to staffing shortages eh? They don’t matter do they?

As long as the unvaccinated staff learn their lesson then all the patients that are harmed as a result of short staffing are just collateral damage right?

Transmission rates have been a problem in healthcare settings by its nature you mix with many people. I don’t want to be a part of that. Much more selfishly I’ve seen more than enough COVID to try and minimise the risk for my family and friends.
Those from the general population who are conspiracy theorists and don’t think COVID is real should however be invited to volunteer in hospitals. Only for COVID positive patients and to sit with them for company and help feed those who are to breathless to mange to feed themselves.

So what's the solution OP.

So what's the solution OP.

The solution is to not fire unvaccinated staff in the first place.

I would love to hear anyones solution to the impending staffing crisis? A lot of clinic areas are probably already providing dangerous/ substandard care due to staff shortages and burnt out staff. I would love to know how getting rid of 10% of staffing within a Trust is not considered to be a concern?

Has Boris even got a clue about how he’s going to manage the situation? I very much doubt it.

Mind you, I won’t believe it’s going to happen until it actually does.

@DontWantTheRivalry
It’s going to be a shit show and I like to think that the Government are secretly shitting themselves because they feel like they can’t back down, but they also know the huge damage it will cause the NHS and the patients when huge numbers of staff are made to leave.

According to the BBC on 10th November "more than 93% of NHS frontline staff have had their first dose and 90% are fully vaccinated."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59215282

So I think we can assume that less than 7% will be at risk of the sack (I'd guess under 5%, as I think a few percent are hesitant but will ultimately do it rather than lose their job). I realise any job losses are going to put further strain on services, but how serious would it be to lose 5/4/3/2/1% of staff?

Also I wonder who would receive more blame in the event of catastrophic job losses. Some would blame the government and others would blame the unvaccinated NHS workers. I assume the majority would blame the unvaccinated.

I do think there might have been a better way to handle this though. Why not offer pay rises, or at least bonuses, for NHS staff, contingent on being vaccinated? This could be instead of or as well as sacking those who don't comply (maybe they could wait to see how many are incentivised and decide sackings aren't necessary). This could be applied to all government jobs and presumably could have been applied to furlough and benefits too.

I hope they do, but not sure how they will. I have a handful of family members in admin roles in the NHS, one sometimes visits wards. They're all unvaccinated and very anti-vax- conspiracies, preppers, the lot. I don't know if they'll be sacked?

Why not offer pay rises, or at least bonuses, for NHS staff, contingent on being vaccinated?

That might be a better offer.

At our Trust, if staff commit to doing two extra shifts a month to cover shortages (as in two bank shifts) we get a £100 bonus in our pay packets.

They're all unvaccinated and very anti-vax- conspiracies, preppers, the lot. I don't know if they'll be sacked?

I would hope not seeing as they aren’t patient facing?

They may just be told not to go near the wards?

IHateFlies

What a joke of an administration here in Quebec

They threatened to fire them , then delayed the deadline date

Then they said that they decided not to because they JUST realized how catastrophic it would be for the health system.

A system that is already massively understaffed and hugely inefficient to begin with.

@DontWantTheRivalry

It's pretty unlikely that an unvaccinated midwife would be transferred to a ventilation unit , a covid ward is not the same.

And who cares about all the poor women in the maternity unit having horrendous labours and potentially losing their babies due to staffing shortages eh? They don’t matter do they?

As long as the unvaccinated staff learn their lesson then all the patients that are harmed as a result of short staffing are just collateral damage right?

Pretty sure this has been said before, but 13% is the current proportion, in the hospital you are a nurse at (reported by yourself).

The deadline is not for a long while yet. Mandates do tend to increase proportion of people who are on the fence, so it's likely this proportion will significantly.

If it gets to April, and it is clear that the harms of losing the number of staff it will impact are greater than the harms of increased coronavirus transmission, then presumably they will rethink.

As long as the unvaccinated staff learn their lesson
I think you minsundertand the rationale of including this vaccine in those necessary for HCPs @DontWantTheRivalry

Sigh..

Mandates do tend to increase proportion of people who are on the fence but decide to go ahead, so it's likely this proportion will significantly decrease.

Maybe if staff are happy to accept a financial bonus for having a vacinne then they didnt really have a very good reason for not having it in the first place. Some people may see that as bribery. With midwives, yes it's awful that mums and babies suffer due to understaffing but their suffering with catching covid is just as serious.

Unfortunately this is exactly what has happened in social care - the government played a blinder there by not announcing the NHS mandate until after the social care deadline so no one outseide social care was really bothered about it. So now we have increasing numbers of people stuck in hospital, essentially bed-blocking, because there is no more capacity in social care.

I completely agree OP. Although they seem to be contradicting themselves already. We've been told all staff must be vaccinated patient facing or not, but then in the same breath talk about redeployment. Redeployment to what?

There are apparently 15% total across my trust who are unvaccinated, and I personally know some clinical staff who aren't. Like a pp said we are already short staffed and some of the clinicians feel we're not providing a safe service at times now, so goodness knows what it will be like if this goes ahead.

What I do hope to see is the return of nhs bursaries. I cannot comprehend how we can be in a position of massive staffing shortages but expecting people to pay out 9k a year for training.

Ours have been told they are leaving in zapril if they are not fullt vaccinated by then even though we have acute staff shortages. They are already not allowed to visit any nursing homes which is part of our job.

Yes I do believe they will follow through with it. They will lose highly experienced staff in the process. I don't believe this Government care. It is a Tory Government after all. Anyone would think they wanted to run the NHS into the ground...

@DontWantTheRivalry - blackmail and threats? NHS staff have long had to be vaccinated in order to work. This is no different. We are after all in the midst of a global public health emergency.

@doublemonkey - that's your choice. But if you want to work in the NHS it's a contract of your employment.

@DontWantTheRivalry - the medics I know think it's ridiculous that anyone is objecting to having the vaccine.

[quote luckylavender]@doublemonkey - that's your choice. But if you want to work in the NHS it's a contract of your employment.[/quote]
Maybe that's why people are leaving the NHS in droves.

Mandating vaccines is completely out of proportion to the event we now find ourselves dealing with.

It's time for us to have open honest discussions about cost- benefit analysis and where to go from here.

Just pondering but if you go into hospital fully jabbed etc and catch covid from an unvaccinated nurse would that not leave them open to being sued? Unlikely scenario but possible?

Yes it will happen as it did with carers, but with more controls in place. A large amount of that 13 percent will go get their vaccination the rest will have their employment terminated.