Covid: Hundreds of Cambridge hospital staff yet to get vaccine

From April, front-line NHS staff in England will need to have the Covid jab or face being redeployed or dismissed.

Hundreds of staff at a hospital trust are yet to confirm if they will be vaccinated before the April deadline.

From then, front-line NHS staff in England will need to have been vaccinated against Covid or face being redeployed or dismissed.

Thirty staff members from Addenbrooke's Hospital and The Rosie in Cambridge have said they will not get vaccinated while 200 have not yet decided.

The hospital trust said it was a "very sensitive process".

David Wherrett, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust's director of workforce, said: "These are colleagues who have worked immensely hard for us and with us for many years.

"Sadly this may result in dismissing colleagues who do not meet the requirement."

With 1 April being the deadline for staff to have had both vaccine doses, staff must have had their first dose by 3 February in order to have had both jabs in time, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Mr Wherrett said the trust had always been very clear that it expected staff to take up the vaccine.

Currently 96.2% of staff employed by the trust have been vaccinated.

He said there was a group of people who held "very strong views" that vaccination was not for them.

Mr Wherrett said that work to get staff vaccinated would continue, but it may not change everyone's position.