7,660 NHS staff here reprieved over ‘no jab’ ruling

THOUSANDS OF NHS workers in Yorkshire would have been on the verge of losing their jobs if the Government had not made a U-turn on plans to make Covid-19 vaccines mandatory.

NHS figures show 72,105 workers (4.7 per cent) in England, including 7,660 in Yorkshire and the North East, had not received a single dose by January 30.

Front-line workers who have contact with patients were told they would be dismissed or redeployed if they did not accept their first jab by February 3 and two by April 1.

But earlier this week Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the policy was “no longer proportionate” because the risk of hospitalisation and death had reduced after Delta was replaced by the lesssevere Omicron as the dominant variant.

Dr Brian McGregor, chair of the British Medical Association’s Yorkshire branch, said he was relieved the rule had been scrapped as it could have exacerbated the existing staffing crisis.

He said: “We know that the workforce is severely depleted and why would you want to voluntarily reduce that workforce further if you could possibly avoid it?

“For us, the recommendation is that people should have the vaccine but we wouldn’t want to impose it on people.

“We want to be having a discussion and debate, encouraging people to see the sense of it.

“There’s a concern about the fact that these [unvaccinated] people work in the NHS but we want to understand why these individuals are choosing not to have the vaccine.”

Mr Javid said all NHS workers had a professional duty to be vaccinated and the Government “makes no apology” for the initial policy.