‘No jab, no job’, care home tells its workers
SEVERAL care homes in Birmingham and the West Midlands have introduced a “no jab, no frontline job” policy – in a move widely tipped to be taken up by other providers.
Care UK, which runs homes in Sutton Coldfield, Worcestershire and Warwickshire, has declared new staff must be vaccinated before getting a job.
And Barchester, which operates more than 220 private care homes including premises in Edgbaston, Solihull and Dudley, said it planned to insist all current staff are vaccinated by April 23, warning that if they “refuse on non-medical grounds they will, by reason of their own decision, make themselves unavailable for work”.
The move comes amid reports that significant numbers of health and social care staff in the city are hesitating when offered the vaccine.
There are also currently 21 ongoing outbreaks in city care homes – and most are among staff.
Barchester runs Edgbaston Beaumont Care, Fountains in Solihull, Broadway Halls in Dudley, The Spires in Lichfield, Hollyfields in Kidderminster and Latimer in Worcester among its network of almost 200 care homes.
It said it expects all staff to have the vaccine by April 23, with the only exemptions on medical grounds, including pregnancy.
In a statement the company said most of its residents (90 per cent) and 82 per cent of staff have so far had a first vaccine. They said they have encouraged staff to take the vaccine and there has been “strong uptake and positive engagement”.
The city’s public health director Dr Justin Varney said there was a case for mandating vaccination in health and care settings.
He told the Birmingham Post: “I have always felt it is important people do have personal choice, and that vaccination should be a choice.
“But there are parts of society, in terms of business, where it should be mandated, to protect the people you work with.” Dr Varney, a former GP, said: “As a doctor, I have to have a TB vaccination, I have to have the MMR vaccine, in order to be a practising doctor, both to protect me and my patients.
“I can see a world where that will become more normal for both health and social care staff to have a Covid vaccination, as it will be part of their responsibility to protect the people they look after.”