‘Mandatory’ vaccines for hospital staff
Health bosses confirm proposal may be ‘revisited’ after 88% QA take-up
ALL city hospital staff could be required to have a Covid19 vaccine going forward, a health meeting has been told.
So far 88 per cent of Queen Alexandra Hospital staff have taken up the offer of a first dose. All staff have been offered a jab.
Concerns over the take-up of the coronavirus jab by those working at the hospital in Cosham and St Mary’s Community Health Campus in Milton have been raised, with a push to increase numbers planned.
Health bosses said proposals to make vaccinations for hospital staff mandatory could be ‘revisited’ in the future.
Speaking at a health overview and scrutiny panel, the deputy chief executive of Portsmouth Hospitals University Trust, Penny Emerit, said: ‘100 per cent of staff have all been offered the opportunity to take up the
Covid vaccine.
‘88 per cent have now taken up that opportunity for a first dose, and we are now in the process of administering the second dose.
‘We are working to try to increase that as we need to get that as high as possible.
‘Additional things we have done include trying to understand what particular concerns might be driving our staff not to take the vaccine.
‘We are working with obstetricians on concerns around pregnancy and other issues and also with ethnic minority staff to make sure they are taking up the offer as well.’
Panel member and Gosport councillor, Philip Raffaelli, asked if the Covid vaccine could become a requirement to work in certain areas of hospitals.
In response, Dr John
Knighton, medical director at the trust, said: ‘We have talked about it in the last few years around flu vaccinations and for Covid it is something that is currently been talked about with the chief medical officer but there doesn’t seem to be an appetite to make that mandatory.
‘I can see we may end up revisiting that, maybe through a combination of professional and public pressure.’
Figures published yesterday, which show data up to March 14, revealed over 70,000 have now had the first dose of the jab in Portsmouth. A further 6,000 have also had their second vaccine.