Medical unions hail ‘long overdue’ U-turn over jabs for NHS staff

No10’s rumoured U-turn on mandatory Covid vaccination for NHS workers has been ‘long overdue’, a medical union said today — but care home bosses are in uproar after losing nearly 40,000 staff to the policy last year.

A two-jab vaccine mandate was supposed to come into force in the health service on April 1 which would have given the remaining 80,000 unvaccinated frontline NHS staff until Thursday to get their first dose. 

But Health Secretary Sajid Javid is said to be meeting with ministers on the Covid Operations Cabinet (Covid-O) committee later today to finalise scrapping the controversial move.

The Royal College of Nursing said the decision has come ‘just in time’, with the jobs of around one in 20 frontline NHS employees hanging in the balance.

On Friday, those without jabs would have faced dismissal warnings and been asked to work out their notice periods until March 31. 

Patricia Marquis, the RCN’s director, claimed the policy made ‘no sense’ and could have actually ‘puts patients at more risk’. 

But care bosses said the U-turn was a ‘slap in the face’ to tens of thousands of care home staff who lost their job over a vaccine mandate that came into force last November.

The chair of the National Care Association, Nadra Ahmed, said she was ‘frustrated’ and ‘saddened’ for all staff that had ‘needlessly’ lost their jobs. 

Boris Johnson appeared to confirm reports of a change to the NHS jab mandate today during a visit to the Port of Tilbury in Essex.

He told reporters: ‘I think that Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, is saying a bit more later on about how you might deal with different variants of coronavirus because they have different implications when it comes to transmission.’ 

Boris Johnson appeared to confirm reports of a change to the NHS jab mandate today during a visit to the Port of Tilbury in Essex

Health Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured this morning) is said to be meeting with ministers on the Covid Operations Cabinet (Covid-O) committee later today to finalise scrapping the controversial move

But now, ministers are set to scrap the plan after one in 20 NHS staff – the equivalent of 77,591 people – have still not had their first jab. In London, one in ten staff are unvaccinated

A senior Government source told The Telegraph that the U-turn has been made possible because of Omicron – which is much milder than older variants and makes two jabs significantly weaker at stopping transmission. 

The RCN, Royal College of GPs and the Royal College of Midwives previously called on the Government to extend the deadline to prevent a mass exodus in the NHS.

But asked whether she would support scrapping the compulsory vaccination policy entirely, Ms Marquis said the RCN ‘absolutely would’.

She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘We’ve been calling for it for some time now saying that mandating these vaccines is not the way to go about getting people to have the vaccination.

‘So, we absolutely would support the scrapping of the regulations.’

She said the move would come ‘just in time’ to ‘stop the mass exodus that we would have seen had the policy gone forward’. 

Some doctors and nurses have reportedly already left the NHS in England to take up posts in Scotland and Wales, where they do not need to be double-jabbed. 

Ms Marquis added: ‘But the most important issue for us right now is the fact that there are so many nursing vacancies already.

‘It makes no sense to risk losing thousands of registered nurses and health care support workers from both health and also what’s been lost from social care, which actually puts patients at more risk than not having nurses at all.

‘We think the situation needs to be reviewed urgently and quick decisions need to be made before we start to lose people from the system.’

Ms Marquis warned most staff refusing to get vaccinated would already have started to be dismissed this week.

She said: ‘The vaccination is the right policy but forcing vaccination wasn’t, not in the middle of a staffing crisis particularly.

‘And so assuming it is going to be scrapped, we will certainly support that scrapping but also support the continued conversations to try and encourage as many people as possible to get vaccinated.

‘If it goes ahead, it will mean that many, many nurses who were set to lose their jobs over the next few months will be able to stay in their jobs and continue to deliver patient care as safely as possible, given the lack of staff we already have.

‘But I really do understand what my colleague from social care is saying that this is a change of heart too late for the social care sector, but hopefully it will enable them to bring back some of those really valuable staff that they lost.’

She added: ‘We would say that Covid is still a serious disease and would absolutely urge all nursing staff to get vaccinated but the situation has changed in that Omicron is serious for those who are unvaccinated but actually overall as a country things have improved.’

A spokesman for the RCN said: ‘If these reports [of the vaccine mandate being scrapped] are correct, this climbdown by the Government is long overdue.

‘Vaccination is hugely important but this was the wrong policy, especially as it added to the current pressures.’ 

A total of 40,000 nursing jobs are already vacant in the health service, latest figures show, a number that would triple should unvaccinated staff be asked to leave.

Concerns have repeatedly been raised that firing unvaccinated employees would lead to unsafe staffing levels on wards — putting patients at risk.

But these warnings fell on deaf ears when the care sector warned this could happen if all its staff were also forced to be vaccinated.

Responding to reports the compulsory vaccination policy for the NHS could be scrapped, Ms Ahmed said the policy had left social care ‘on its knees’.

She told BBC Breakfast: ‘I think we’re really happy for our NHS colleagues if this is what’s going to happen because it’s an unnecessary burden, and persuasion will bring us to the same outcome. 

‘Social care is on its knees… and we just do not have people walking through the doors.

‘Vaccination is obviously one of the questions that they ask. 

‘It is the right policy — we do need to move forward to try and encourage as many people to be vaccinated as physically possible — but we have infection prevention control measures in place, and we did that for the first part of this pandemic really successfully, generally speaking.

‘The people who we’ve lost, we hope they’ll think about coming back and we will do everything we can to try and encourage them to come back, but they will have found other roles and they may be happier in their other roles now and not want to move again.’

Around 40,000 people lost their jobs in the care sector when everyone working in this area was required to be vaccinated from November.

Care sector leaders had railed against the move, warning it would leave homes short-staffed and unable to accept more patients from hospitals — increasing pressure on hospitals.

The mandate for the NHS was delayed until April 1 to help the health service get through the winter months, in case Covid placed serious pressure on services.  

Government minister Mr Clarke told BBC Breakfast: ‘Again, that would be for the Health Secretary to determine — I wouldn’t pre-empt any announcement that he might make.

‘Obviously, again, as with the frontline NHS, the decision was taken that people who are working with the oldest people, some of the most vulnerable in our society, should be vaccinated.

‘There were good reasons for that — there are good reasons why you would want people who are dealing with very vulnerable people to have got protection for both themselves and those they are looking after.

‘Whether the shift to Omicron from Delta allows a change of policy in that space is something which, as I say, would be for health ministers to lead on.’  

A senior government source told the Telegraph that ministers are U-turning on the mandatory jabs policy because the Omicron variant is much more mild than previous strains.

‘Omicron has changed things,’ the source said. ‘When we first introduced the policy, it was delta that was the dominant variant. That was very high risk in terms of how severe it was.

‘For omicron, while it is more transmissible, all the studies have shown it is less severe. That has changed the conversation about whether mandatory jabs are still proportionate.’ 

Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: ‘There were always two risks to manage here: the risk of Covid cross-infection in healthcare settings and the consequences of losing staff if significant numbers choose not to be vaccinated.’ 

Prior to the reported U-turn, NHS managers had been advised they could move unvaccinated medics from the frontline into roles which do not involve direct patient contact. 

Bosses wouldn’t have to help staff find ‘suitable alternative employment’ and redundancy payments would not be made to those who are dismissed. 

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) health watchdog has said it will not take action against hospitals which decide it is safer to keep unvaccinated staff in place.

Last week Mr Javid said the policy was ‘under review’ and he did not want to lose a single worker to the mandate.

He hinted it may be scrapped because Omicron was less severe than Delta, meaning unjabbed workers posed less of a threat to patients.

Meanwhile, NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard told a board meeting on Thursday that the compulsory jabs policy posed ‘a real element of risk’ to services.

She said that aiming for universal uptake was ‘of course the right’ objective, but added: ‘At the same time, there is a real element of risk in this that local teams are facing and there’s a risk for our national level targets including the expansion of the workforce, particularly in nursing.’