28.03.2024

Javid announces U-turn on mandatory NHS jabs, but ‘makes no apology’ for original plans

Boris Johnson refuses to deny NHS staff mandatory vaccine U-turn. Health secretary Sajid Javid has announced the government’s U-turn on mandatory vaccines for NHS health and social care workers.

He had been facing pressure to scrap the requirement for health workers in England to be double-vaccinated by 1 April amid fears it will lead to a major staffing crisis.

In the Commons, he told MPs that Britain has passed the peak of the winter spike in Covid cases and that the Omicron variant is “intrinsically less severe” than previous strains.

He added: “When taken together with the first factor that we now have greater population protection, the evidence shows that the risk of presentation to emergency care or hospital admission with Omicron is approximately half of that for Delta.

“Given these dramatic changes, it is not only right but responsible to revisit the balance of risks and opportunities that guided our original decision last year.

“While vaccination remains our very best line of defence against Covid-19, I believe that it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment through statute.”

Around 77,000 healthcare workers have yet to receive a single Covid vaccine dose, according to the NHS.

However, sources and experts claim this figure includes vaccinated staff whose status has been incorrectly recorded in the national database.

Irish government dept was in ‘serious breach’ of Covid rules – report

A “serious breach” of Covid-19 social distancing rules occurred at a June 2020 champagne celebration at the Department of Foreign Affairs, a report has found.

The department’s secretary general Joe Hackett was asked by minister Simon Coveney to investigate an apparent lockdown-breaking event at the department on the night Ireland was voted on to the UN’s Security Council.

The report said: “By providing alcohol and requesting a group of 20 officers to congregate for the purposes of a photo, he (then secretary general Niall Burgess) facilitated a breach of the guidance. Although brief, this was a serious breach.”

The report added that it could not rule out the possibility that other “minor breaches of guidance” may have occurred.

However the report cleared Mr Coveney of wrongdoing, saying there was “no evidence that public health guidance was breached when the then-tanaiste returned to the UN Policy Unit to thank the officers.”

It also found that the event had not been planned in advance, and “extensive measures” were taken to comply with Covid-19 rules.

Corbyn on U-turn: ‘Persuasion more powerful than compulsion’

Jeremy Corbyn hopes “we will never go down the road of compulsory vaccinations” again, he told MPs.

The former Labour leader said that workers needed to be persuaded, rather than forced, to get jabbed.

His comments followed health secretary Sajid Javid’s U-turn on requiring that all NHS workers and social care staff be double-jabbed by 1 April otherwise they would risk losing their jobs.

In addressing Mr Javid, he said: “I hope the Secretary of State can actually recognise the very important message given by the unions and the royal colleges only seven weeks ago, of the short-sightedness of a compulsory policy which would drive people, vital workers, out of the care sectors and the NHS.

“And I hope we will never go down the road of compulsory vaccinations. I support vaccination but persuasion is much more powerful than compulsion.”

The MP for Islington North added: “Could he also tell us what is the cost of each vaccine to each resident of this country and what is the cost of its manufacture and if he has any plans for the patent to be moved into public ownership?”

Mr Javid replied: “Where I agree with the right honourable gentleman is on the importance of persuasion in vaccination.

“Where I am afraid I do disagree with him is the idea that public ownership of patents around vaccinations or drug development in general would help. It would be a backwards step and we would not see the innovation that has saved lives.”

Labour backs U-turn after having agreed to mandatory NHS jabs

Labour is supporting the government’s decision to step back from the proposal to make vaccines mandatory for NHS and social care workers.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told the Commons: “We supported this measure in December, put the national interest before party politics, and made sure it had the votes needed to pass the House.

“We understand the difficulties faced by the government in coming to today’s decision and we will continue to be as constructive and helpful as we can be in a national crisis, as Labour has been throughout the past two years.”

Mr Streeting had earlier said that “however, efforts must continue to persuade those staff who are still hesitant” to get vaccinated.

‘Too little, too late’ – says care worker sacked for refusing vaccine

A care worker who lost her job after refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 has said scrapping the vaccine mandate would be “too little, too late” for the care sector.

Katrina Aslet-Clark, from Greater Manchester, had worked in the care sector for 25 years until she was sacked in November.

The 49-year-old, who worked as a deputy manager at a private care village in the North West, described the mandate as “utterly senseless and crazy”.

She told the PA news agency: “All the way through, I thought they’re not going to do this – it was one of the most upsetting and stressful things that I’ve had to go through.

“I do believe in vaccines, but I don’t trust this one and I don’t believe that my choice should have been taken away. So I stood my ground and in the end, I got sacked.”

Before the U-turn this evening by health secretary Sajid Javid, ministers had been facing pressure this week to end the requirement for staff in England to be double jabbed by 1 April, amid fears it will lead to a major staffing crisis.

Frontline NHS and wider social care staff would have needed their first dose by Thursday in order to be double jabbed by the deadline.

Ms Aslet-Clark said she is “very pro-vaccine normally” and believes that jabs to protect against infections such as hepatitis B are “sensible”.

Sajid Javid defends mandatory vaccines for NHS workers in U-turn

Sajid Javid has announced a U-turn on mandatory vaccines for NHS and social care staff.

The health secretary defended the policy of initially introducing the rule, insisting the government “makes no apology for it”.

He said in the House of Commons that there was a need to consider the impact on the workforce in NHS and social care settings, “especially at a time where we already have a shortage of workers and near full employment across the economy”.

Mr Javid told MPs: “In December I argued, and this House overwhelmingly agreed, that the weight of clinical evidence in favour of vaccination as a condition of deployment outweighed the risks to the workforce.

“It was the right policy at the time, supported by the clinical evidence, and the Government makes no apology for it. It has also proven to be the right policy in retrospect, given the severity of Delta.”

Mr Javid said that, since September, there has been a “net increase of 127,000” people working across the NHS who have “done the right thing and got jabbed”, and a net increase of 32,000 people vaccinated in social care.

He went on: “Given that Delta has been replaced, it’s only right that our policy on vaccination as a condition of deployment is reviewed. So I asked for fresh advice including from the UK Health Security Agency and England’s chief medical officer.”

Covid bereaved call for ‘nothing short’ of PM’s resignation

Bereaved relatives of people who died with coronavirus have called for Boris Johnson’s resignation following the publication of Sue Gray’s highly-anticipated report.

Members of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group praised Ms Gray for “telling it like it is” in the report on Downing Street parties that took place during lockdown.

Mr Johnson apologised and insisted “I get it and I will fix it” after the limited inquiry criticised “failures of leadership and judgment”.

Ms Gray, a senior civil servant, has not been able to publish her report in full as the Metropolitan Police are investigating the allegations.

Rivka Gottlieb, who lost her father Michael to Covid aged 73 during the first lockdown in April 2020, said Mr Johnson’s “position is completely untenable” and he “cannot be taken seriously”.

Fran Hall, 61, lost her husband Steve Mead three weeks after they married in 2020.

She said: “Like every other person who has lost someone they love to Covid under the leadership of this man and his cabinet, I am beyond exhausted, distressed and disgusted by the shameful circus that is playing out at the heart of Westminster.”

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