'No jab, no job' rules are axed for care home staff after Government U-turns over need for Covid jab

Mandatory vaccination for health and social care workers will be scrapped in a fortnight following a Government U-turn. 

Ministers were accused of undermining public confidence after Health Secretary Sajid Javid told MPs in January that the ‘no jab, no job’ policy was ‘no longer proportionate’. 

Now it has been confirmed that compulsory jabs will no longer be a condition of employment from March 15. 

The decision follows a public consultation, where 90 per cent of responses supported the removal of the requirement for care staff. 

Sajid Javid told MPs in January that the ‘no jab, no job’ policy was ‘no longer proportionate’ for health and social care workers

It comes after an estimated 40,000 workers were fired when legislation over being fully vaccinated came into effect in November. 

Mr Javid said that it had been the ‘right policy when the original decision was taken’. 

But he added that things had changed following ‘clinical evidence regarding the current Omicron variant of Covid-19, which is intrinsically less severe than Delta, and the high rate of vaccination across the population’. 

Pat Cullen, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said the change was the ‘right decision’ but said it had come ‘too late for those who have already lost their jobs’.

She added: ‘Ministers must now urgently address the health and social care workforce crisis which is undermining nursing staff’s ability to care safely for their patients.

‘There are tens of thousands of nursing vacancies across those services.’

Up to 80,000 NHS employees had faced the sack if mandatory vaccination had been required for frontline NHS and wider social care staff in regulated settings from April 1.

But last month health leaders warned a U-turn risked sending the message that jabs were no longer important for the population as a whole.

Mr Javid said 92 per cent of the NHS workforce and 95 per cent of care home staff have received two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 89 per cent of home or domiciliary care staff have so far received at least one dose.