Ministers urged not to ‘threaten’ NHS staff over mandatory Covid jab (England)

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Northerner

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Ministers have been urged not to “threaten” NHS staff by forcing them to get vaccinated against coronavirus under plans being considered by the government.

The shadow Commons leader, Thangam Debbonaire, said it was not a “good idea” after the vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, said the proposal was being investigated alongside the existing consultation on making jabs mandatory for social care workers.

There is nervousness in Whitehall about doing anything to destabilise the vaccine rollout by requiring that people get the jab instead of keeping it voluntary – something that several behavioural scientists have warned could dampen take-up among already vaccine-hesitant groups.

But after concerns that a sizeable number of health and social care staff, who were among the first to be offered the vaccine, are reluctant to get jabbed, the government has been consulting on making vaccines mandatory for care workers, and is now expanding that to include all those working in the NHS.

www.theguardian.com

Ministers urged not to ‘threaten’ NHS staff over mandatory Covid jab

Labour calls for caution after vaccines minister says government is considering plan
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
What's the big deal? Health and Social care staff are looking after folk, the vast majority of whom have been vaccinated, and are unlikely to be carrying the virus. People who need social care tend not to socialise.
 
All surgeons in the NHS are required to have a Hepatitis B vaccination. No ifs or buts. And full cooperation. No blackmail or coercion, or ridicule. They just can't work without it.
 
I didn't say they were. I just used surgeons as an example of compulsory vaccination which has been accepted without a single protest. This should be obvious, I would have thought.

I'll try and make my posts simpler to understand, If you like, so you don't need to invent things I didn't say.
 
mikeyB said:
I didn't say they were. I just used surgeons as an example of compulsory vaccination which has been accepted without a single protest. This should be obvious, I would have thought.

I'll try and make my posts simpler to understand, If you like, so you don't need to invent things I didn't say.
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That seems needlessly aggressive.
Are you just lashing out at everyone today?
 
Lashing out? I was just trying to be helpful. And responding to a difficulty causing misunderstanding of my obviously difficult to understand post.
 
It is true that masks are pretty ineffective. However, they do reduce the level of transmission to some small degree. This is definitely a case of every little helps (and with exponential growth a little can end up being a lot!!).

But if people want to have punch ups or shout at others for not wearing them, then any benefit they may have given just goes out the window.

On a different matter which Amity Island mentioned, I have always been perplexed as to why people with ginger hair are ridiculed. Personally, I have always loved that colour of hair (I'm not ginger by the way). 🙂
 
I think there is something of a topic drift here.

Health workers have intimate contact with patients. Surgeons wear masks during surgery, and are immunised against Hepatitis B, a blood borne disease. That is to protect both the surgeon and the patients.

It is not, in my view, a difficult ask for health workers to be immunised against Covid to reduce the possibility of patients being infected. It’s not a personal choice, it’s a safety measure protecting the public, and limiting spread of Covid in hospitals.
 
mikeyB said:
I think there is something of a topic drift here.

Health workers have intimate contact with patients. Surgeons wear masks during surgery, and are immunised against Hepatitis B, a blood borne disease. That is to protect both the surgeon and the patients.

It is not, in my view, a difficult ask for health workers to be immunised against Covid to reduce the possibility of patients being infected. It’s not a personal choice, it’s a safety measure protecting the public, and limiting spread of Covid in hospitals.
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I agree - personally I think the NHS should insist on it otherwise they are failing to provide adequate care under the Health and Safety at work act, in the same way a construction worker should be removed from site if they fail to follow the safety rules. If a NHS worker gets COVID and dies or worse passes that on to many critical care patients with compromised immune systems and they all die - is the NHS negligent when protective measures now exist?

I think people have a right to say no to it, why they would though baffles me with the horror they have witnessed, but if they do say no the NHS ought to consider assigning a role to them which is off the front line of care.

Similar argument but different - people can
put whatever they like into their bodies so far as I am concerned - but I’d expect the plane I was on to be flown by a sober pilot.
 
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Your concerns are valid, but misses the point I was making. The fundamental principle is - the NHS has a legal and moral duty to protect their employees and patients. What I was saying is - the NHS should insist front line care is undertaken by people who have been afforded the maximum protection possible as driven by the best available data therefore managing the risk to the best extent they can. That would include in my opinion reassigning employees to other types of work that is lower in risk to them and others if they choose not to take up the vaccine. Not the NHS should insist on people having the vaccine.

The overwhelming evidence is that having the vaccine is safer than not having the vaccine both for the individual and others with the exception of 20-29 year olds with low exposure risk (arguably NHS workers are high exposure risk).

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here it is then

Covid vaccine to be required for England care home staff https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57492264

were they listening to what I said, spooky.

“Care staff are expected to be given 16 weeks to have the jab - or face being redeployed away from frontline care, or lose their jobs”

although lose their job is a bit much
 
BlueArmy said:
here it is then

Covid vaccine to be required for England care home staff https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57492264

were they listening to what I said, spooky.

“Care staff are expected to be given 16 weeks to have the jab - or face being redeployed away from frontline care, or lose their jobs”

although lose their job is a bit much
Click to expand...
Bearing in mind many care home staff are of an age where they will be mixing with their children and own families, you would think for their own protection and that of their family they would be all to willing to get the vaccine.
 
Well the wording should really be or RISK losing their jobs I suppose, but this is a newspaper article not a legal employment contract, so I'm OK with that. If more refused the jab than there are vacancies 'in other areas' then of course losing the job becomes a risk, and is obvious so didn't really need saying! If you apply for any job and there are less positions available than there are applicants, you risk not being employed in the first place and always have done! When companies need to make redundancies, ditto. Just because where you happen to work has never hitherto needed to make people redundant, does not mean they never will.
 
I am aligned with some of the points other people made though about forcing people. Its needs to remain their choice, even if my own view is that is a particularly poor choice on many levels both for them and selfishly for everyone else who did take the risk to protect themselves and everyone else for the benefit of those who choose not to return to a normal life as well, just believe every reasonable effort should be made to redeploy first and losing jobs should be the worst case when all else fails. But I stand by the basic principles of - these organisations and government is negligent if they do not enforce the protective measures in the same way every other industry would be should they choose to not manage risk to health and safety properly
 
PS my big sis had ginger hair and wore glasses and always had more friends than me. Knowing well how boys tease/bait other boys far more than little girls used to, as an adult I asked an 11 year old boy at our naturist club (his parents were members, all quite proper!) if his mates at school ever said anything about his brown bum and he replied 'Occasionally one of them says Hey - you're completely brown everywhere, no white bits! so I just say, 'I know - lovely, ain't it!' then turned his back on me and patted his bum - 'and then just ignore them.' Always thought he was a nice kid brought up properly anyway - so was relieved to hear he'd been taught well about bullying and knew how to handle it. I didn't know any other kids that sort of age I could have such a conversation with, and still don't. I mean our youngest granddaughter aged 8 told her grandad when they went a walk a few weeks ago that I have an anger management issue about her not being taught her times tables - cos yeah, I freely admit I did go apeshit when I discovered kids aren't taught them now!

(How on EARTH does an 8 yo know the term 'Anger Management' ..... I think I have an anger management problem about that too ........ )
 
@BlueArmy, if I understand you and @Amity Island correctly, you are coming at the argument from different sides.

Amity is coming at it from the perspective of the individual and you are coming at it from the perspective of the rest of society.

On this issue, I am siding more towards the rights of the individual.
I'm well aware that this side of the argument is where you'll find all the conspiracy theory nutters but I think when it comes to injecting medicine into people, the rights of the individual shades it for me.

You gave a comparison with a pilot requiring to be sober to fly a plane but this isn't a persuasive argument at all. In fact that's the opposite of forcing someone to take something into their bodies to keep their job.

The conspiracy nutters might be unhinged but the argument is shaded in their favour on this. People should have the right to refuse any medical treatment of any nature without being subject to discrimination. On this point, I'm not convinced that the individual owes the rest of society anything.
 
i have not been clear, I agree that right is a basic human right and 100% support it. But that has to be balanced against the basic human right of others deserving protection through managed risk and the negligence of leadership not to enforce that somehow. The pilot example was more an analogy, people also have a right to put into their bodies whatever they like (in the same way they have the right to prevent anything not of their choosing to be put into their bodies) but that right should not prevail over my right to be safe on a flight (or in this case, whilst under the care of others)
 
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trophywench said:
@BlueArmy - sack em for proving to be far to stupid to safely work for us?
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haha - reassign to reduce risk would be my preference!

They still rigorously teach times tables in schools by they way, I think they do it extensively when they get to 9 - my boy has been through that this year, have had to hammer them into him somehow when all he wants to do is be like batman.
 
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Not that it's possible anyway in 2021 - but if eg I broke a bone and was admitted to hospital cos it needed pinning - I'd tell Pete not to visit me please since he only has 50% lung capacity and I wouldn't wish him to expose himself to breathing anything untoward in, just because I'm there. It's only like not going to see a new grandchild yet because you happen to have a cold - or missing a toddler's birthday party because your toddler has chicken pox and you wouldn't want all the other kids to come out in spots. An innate responsibility towards other people ...... I thought but obviously incorrectly this was a human trait so am a bit confused why so many folk who aren't actually directly affected are taking such umbrage about it.
 
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