Care home staff in England could be forced to have Covid vaccine

Care home workers could be forced to have the Covid-19 vaccine, health secretary Matt Hancock said on Tuesday, amid growing concerns about low uptake in the sector. 

His comments follow reports that he and Prime Minister Boris Johnson have requested legislation to make inoculation mandatory for care home workers.

Hancock said that “no decisions had been taken” on the matter, but added that there was a “clear precedent” for the idea within the NHS, with surgeons required to receive the hepatitis B vaccine.

“There is a duty of care that people have if you work in an elderly care home,” Hancock told the BBC’s Today programme.

He said there remained “important moral questions” surrounding the issue, adding: “There would be a change in the law required, so this is something that we are considering but we haven’t made a final decision on and we do want to hear from care homes and indeed care home staff on this question.”

Almost 24m people across England have been vaccinated with their first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. However, Hancock revealed last month that uptake among care home staff had been low, with one-third of workers unvaccinated despite being in the first four prioritisation groups.

Mandatory vaccination has been opposed by unions and the Labour party. In an interview with Times Radio, shadow Cabinet Office minister, Rachel Reeves said that such measures would be “counterproductive” and could “increase scepticism”. 

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, wrote on Twitter that mandatory vaccinations could be “discriminatory”, adding: “Employers should encourage their workers to get vaccinated and make it as easy as possible — eg by giving paid time off for appointments”.

Hancock’s comments come as England marks the anniversary of the first national lockdown, with the public encouraged to observe a minute’s silence at midday and stand on their doorstep at 8pm.

Labour have urged the government to hold an inquiry into its handling of the pandemic. Leader Keir Starmer said: “We owe both the NHS staff and those on the front line and all the families of those who have died to learn the lessons of the last 12 months, to have an inquiry and to learn what went wrong to make sure we never repeat that.”

In Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Johnson said that the past year had shown the great strengths of the British public and he paid tribute to NHS, social care and public sector workers. 

He also praised the ingenuity of the scientific community, adding that in March last year he would not have believed it would have been possible in 12 months to develop a vaccine and inoculate half of the adult population.

On Monday, the government published its “road map regulations” outlining in law England’s path out of lockdown.

Under the legislation, which will come into force next week if approved by a parliamentary vote on Thursday, people could be fined £5,000 for travelling abroad without an adequate reason.

Questions surrounding international travel would be addressed by the government’s Global Travel Taskforce, which is scheduled to report to the prime minister on April 12, Hancock said.

Under the existing road map, international travel could be permitted from May 17. However, Hancock said it was “too early” to provide further clarity on foreign holidays, adding: “We are seeing this third wave rise in some parts of Europe, and new variants, and it is very important we protect the progress we have made.”