On Wednesday last week Mr Speaker granted an urgent question to My Colleague Miriam Cates MP on the Government’s COVID vaccination strategy, which includes the policy of sacking -starting in April- any unvaccinated NHS and domiciliary care staff.
The question was timely because, as another colleague, Dr Andrew Murrison MP put it, “when the facts change, we are entitled to change our minds”. The reality is that when Parliament passed the regulations in December which enforce the policy of sacking unvaccinated NHS and care workers (although I voted against the provisions), we didn’t then know what we now know: Which is that risk the unvaccinated pose to patients declines after a very short period and that we have the alternative of regular lateral flow testing, which will tell, whether healthcare professionals pose a threat to their patients.
The vaccination doesn’t stop you catching COVID or passing it on, what it does is reduce your risk of serious illness. So, the rationale for forcing it on NHS and care staff has gone.
The Government’s own analysis is that that 73,000 NHS staff and 38,000 domiciliary care workers will leave as a consequence of the policy of enforced vaccination.
We have no plan for how to replace them and there is already a critical shortage of domiciliary care workers, so much so that beds are unnecessarily occupied in hospitals because care providers have insufficient staff to care for them if they were allowed to go home.
The Government should seek to persuade NHS and domiciliary care workers to be vaccinated, not threaten to sack them. The current course of action is just bonkers.
Alas, we made no progress in persuading ministers last week, there is still time, but it is fast running out