Compulsory Covid jabs for care home staff scrapped

Regulations requiring care workers to be vaccinated against Covid are being lifted from 15 March in England.

The government says things have changed since the policy was made in preparation for a tough autumn and winter.

It says the UK population now has lots of immunity to the virus thanks to vaccines.

And many people have recently caught and recovered from the Omicron variant, which has been less severe than Delta.

There will be outrage from those who say they had to leave their job when the policy began, meaning anyone working in a Care Quality Commission-registered care home in England had to have two vaccine doses by a November deadline, unless they were medically exempt.

In January 2022, the government confirmed its intention to revoke vaccination as a condition of employment for other front-line NHS workers in England.

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• The unvaccinated healthcare workers facing the sack

The government said in a statement; "With the population better protected and lower levels of hospitalisations and mortality, it was right to revisit the balance of risks and benefits that had guided the government's original decisions."

The vast majority of NHS, social care and other healthcare staff have been double-jabbed. Vaccination helps protect them and the patients they treat from catching and getting very ill with Covid.

The government has been under pressure from some within the health service to scrap the mandate, arguing that it would lead to a staffing crisis.

Ministers say those working in health and social care who remain unvaccinated still have a professional responsibility to get vaccinated.

Scotland and Wales have not made any proposals to make Covid jabs compulsory for NHS workers or care home staff. Northern Ireland has been consulting on the issue, with no decision or policy made yet.