MANDATORY Covid jabs to NHS staff were scrapped tonight amid concerns of staff shortages.
Sajid Javid (Health Secretary) confirmed that the House of Commons made a U turn.
3
He stated last week that he was “reflecting”On the policy, all NHS employees would have had to be jabbled by next Thursday in order to avoid losing their jobs.
Unveiling the guidance in the House of Commons, Mr Javid said: “Given that Delta has been replaced, it’s only right that our policy on vaccination as a condition of deployment is reviewed.
“So I asked for fresh advice including from the UK Health Security Agency and England’s chief medical officer.”
He stated that only one in fifteen people became infected in the peak of the Covid wave.
Only 25% of English people have been infected, and 84% of those over 12 years old have been jabbed.
Protecting yourself and your loved ones is the best way to make sure Britain can be trusted. “learn to live”Covid is to be jabbed or boosted.
Mr Javid said: “The Government has made its decision on this.”
He said, “It’s not only right, but also responsible, to revisit the balance risk-reward ratio that influenced our original decision last January.
“While vaccines are still our best line of defense against COVID-19,” I think it is inappropriate to make vaccination a condition for deployment under statute.
“We will launch an open consultation regarding ending the requirement that vaccinations be used in social and health care settings. Subject to the responses and the will of this house, the government will revoke the regulations.”
Yesterday Boris Johnson stated that it was “absolutely clear”All NHS staff and social workers need to be vaccinated.
He added: “My view on NHS workers, everybody involved in looking after vulnerable people, all healthcare professionals should get a vaccine.”
MPs and leaders in health welcomed the change, while Andrew Rosindell tweeted that Mr Javid had made it happen. “the right decision”To end the policy.
Mark Harper, Tory MP and MP for the Tory Party, called this decision a “huge win”.
Labour also backed the Government’s U-turn, with shadow health secretary Wes Streeting saying: “Clearly things have now moved on both in terms of our overall levels of infection and in terms of understanding of the latest variant.
“It has also become clear that to follow through with this policy could see tens of thousands of staff forced to leave their roles at a time when our health service is already understaffed and overstretched.”
But former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt questioned the decision to backtrack on requiring NHS staff to be jabbed.
He stated: “My concern, having marched to the top of hill for the NHS having won a very crucial patient safety argument. Now we’re doing a U turn.
“Isn’t the real reason that we made this decision because we have a staffing crisis?”
Sir David Nicholson, former boss of the NHS, also condemned the last-minute policy change. “It’s hard to imagine a greater shambles.”
If they wanted to lose their jobs, NHS staff would need to be double-jabbed by Thursday.
Patricia Marquis, director of Royal College of Nursing, said that the policy could actually have been implemented. “put patients at more risk”.
She spoke to BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “The vaccination is the right policy but forcing vaccination wasn’t, not in the middle of a staffing crisis particularly.”
Boris Johnson seemed to confirm reports of a shift while visiting the Port of Tilbury in Essex.
He stated to 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.”
According to the plans, there were measures in place for people who couldn’t get jabbed due to medical reasons.
Anyone who has not double-jabbed before February 3rd would have missed the window because of new rules.
It was predicted that it would result in the loss of some 80,000 healthcare workers.
Scores of frontline staff took to the streets to protest the issue, after they were told they have a duty to ensure they are protected when ministers doubled down this week – before scaling back.
Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland do not have any plans to make compulsory the use of Covid vaccines for NHS staff or care home staff.
3
Care home reps have decried the “flip-flopping”The Government stated that it had “devastated”The work force.
The measures came into effect in November and were effective until April. It is believed that around 40,000 people have lost their jobs as a result.
According to a senior source in the Government, “Omicron has made things better.”
“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.”
MPs on all sides and leading physicians had opposed mandatory jabs for England’s health workers.
Lib Dem MP Tim Farron said mandatory shots were “utterly illiberal, utterly wrong and a challenge to our freedoms”.
3
