Care homes were hurled into chaos today as the ‘no jab, no job’ policy forced thousands of workers to say their goodbyes.From today all care home workers — including nurses, cleaners and receptionists — must have two doses of the Covid vaccine or be made redundant.Unions slammed the move that threatens to cripple the sector as like ‘taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut’.And care home bosses told how they had been left heartbroken by leaving letters from staff — some with more than a decade’s experience — who did not want to go.One in Liverpool said they had lost seven per cent of their staff.Unvaccinated workers surrounded by thank you cards from families they had helped said they felt ‘hurt’ to have suddenly being labelled ‘an instant danger’ and asked to leave.And one unjabbed 46-year-old carer from Bristol who had worked in the sector for 15 years said it was ‘not fair’ on staff and residents for homes to suffer so many redundancies.
Estimates suggest up to 60,000 workers have lost their jobs after refusing to get the vaccine — roughly ten per cent of the workforce.
This is on top of some 100,000 jobs that are already going unfilled in the sector.Today homes were reported to be turning away patients from the NHS because they had run out of space.It is thought hundreds could close and many more will need to limit bed numbers because of the staffing crisis.Ministers have defended the mandate, saying care workers got ‘plenty of time’ to book for their jabs.
They added that the policy was to ensure vulnerable residents received ‘proper protection’ from Covid.Business minister Paul Scully said he hoped unvaccinated employees would ‘reconsider’ their position.It comes ahead of frontline NHS workers all being required to have got two doses of the Covid vaccine by April.Care bosses appealed yesterday for their deadline to be delayed until spring, warning residents could be killed by ‘unsafe’ staffing levels.Surrey-based care boss Niccii Gillett (left) said she had been left ‘heartbroken’ by the leaving letters from unvaccinated staff.Former care worker Ruslana Mironova said she has ended up with a job in Lidl after refusing to get the jab Helen Ormandy, who runs St Joseph’s care home in Liverpool, said today they had lost about seven per cent of their staff because of the vaccine mandate.
But she added they would still be able to operate safely Pictured: The above graph shows the proportion of staff working in care homes for the over-65s who have received their first and second doses of the vaccine ahead of the deadline The above chart is from the Government assessment of the impact of mandating double-vaccination in the NHS (second column) and in social care (fourth column).It shows the Government expects 38,000 social care workers to leave their roles when it is mandated.But unions say the number will be closer to 60,000 One care worker who lost his job after refusing to get the vaccine said he was left feeling ‘abandoned’ and ‘betrayed’ by the decision.
Dave Kelly, 32, who asked not to be pictured, started working at a home in Merseyside to ‘do my bit of good for people’.He said after signing up at the start of the pandemic a year and a half ago he had only taken three weeks off.The former carer said: ‘I previously worked as a guide over in Asia but now I am sitting in front of gifts and thank you cards from over 40 families I helped this last two years and still take out family members who have lost a loved one in our care.Health Secretary Sajid Javid has defended what he claimed was the ‘perfectly reasonable’ no jab no job policy for NHS staff, despite official estimates showing it will only convince one in six unvaccinated NHS workers to get the vaccine.His defence yesterday morning came as care industry leaders warned the midnight Covid vaccine deadline for their sector will put patient lives at risk.Some of the 100,000 unvaccinated NHS staff have vowed to leave the health service if Government presses ahead with making being fully vaccinated a condition of deployment in the NHS.One trainee nurse told MailOnline he’ll quit and become a dog trainer if vaccines are made compulsory for NHS staff by the Government’s April deadline.
But Mr Javid told Radio 4 this morning it was NHS staff’s ‘duty’ to get the jab in order to protect patients.’This is all about patient safety, we know vaccines work, we know that they reduce the risk of you being infected, so it reduces the spread of an infection,’ he said.
‘People whether they are in care homes or a hospital bed, they are particularly vulnerable to this virus, it could be fatal.’ ‘It is our duty to everything we can to protect them.’ ‘How do I feel today?: let down, abandoned, betrayed, shunned, disbelief, anger, panic that we are the first but won’t be the last, concern that this system will collapse under Tory failures.’Most importantly, I feel dread for the millions of people who will now have to live or work in a crippled care sector.’ Mr Kelly said he felt ‘most annoyed’ to have been allowed to work on the front lines with little to no protection initially, but was now considered an ‘instant danger’.He did not explain why he had decided not to get the Covid jab.An unvaccinated care worker from Bristol revealed she was now working in Lidl because of the Covid jab mandate.Ruslana Mironova, 46, had worked at luxury £10million home Badminton Place but resigned as soon as vaccines were made compulsory.
The former carer said: ‘I’m very disappointed, it’s very sad [to have left].’I’ve worked as a carer for 15 years and it is a job that I love.It should be our choice whether to have the vaccination or not.’I care about the people I care for, and I’m really disappointed with the Government, not with my managers — they have no choice either.’I am not afraid to speak out on this.
It’s not fair for the 30,000 carers who have left their job and it’s not fair for the people being cared for — there is already a shortage of carers and NHS staff and now the Government is creating an even bigger problem.’ Ms Mironova said she initially looked for work in the NHS, but found it difficult to explain why she had left the care sector after so many years.The former carer had got all her traditional jabs, but had steered clear of the Covid shot because it had been ‘made so quickly’ and she did not want to be treated like an ‘experimental mouse’.She was also concerned about potential long-term effects.A care boss in Liverpool revealed today that she had lost seven per cent of her staff because of the vaccine mandate.Helen Ormandy, who runs St Joseph’s care home neaer the city centre, told Sky News these employees would have been helping to bathe and wash residents.She had worked hard to get them ‘up to date’ information on the vaccines to ‘promote and encourage’ them to get jabbed.But she added: ‘Ultimately, we do have to accept that decision that they’ve made that is right for them.’ She said that the home was currently still at safe staffind levels, and was recruiting more workers to help plug the gaps.The above map shows the five areas where more than one in five care home employees are still yet to get two doses of the Covid vaccine A care boss revealed yesterday how she had been left ‘heartbroken’ by leaving letters from unvaccinated members of staff.
Niccii Gillett, 37, who manages Elmfield House Residential Home in Woking, Surrey, said they had lost six out of 36 employees because of the mandate.Two had been at the home for more than seven years.She said: ‘The sad thing is none of them wanted to leave.And reading their resignation letters was heartbreaking.
‘They’re so grateful for the opportunities and the first one that left, we gave gifts.’It was such an emotional afternoon and for days afterwards my residents were heartbroken because they saw this person as one of them, and even a resident, they have said “I wish she could come back, I don’t care that she’s not vaccinated”.
Daily Covid infections in Britain dropped by five per cent today, marking the ninth day in a row cases have trended downwards.
Department of Health bosses posted another 39,329 cases today, a drop of 5 per cent on the 41,299 positive tests recorded last Wednesday.And deaths and hospitalisations were down week-on-week, with a further 214 fatalities recorded (down 1 per cent) and 823 Covid-infected Britons seeking NHS care (down 7 per cent).Both measurements lag two to three weeks behind the trend in cases due to a delay between a person catching Covid and becoming severely unwell.Cases started falling naturally on October 24 — around two and a half weeks ago, before half-term for the majority of schoolchildren in England.Meanwhile, 79.8 per cent of over-12s across the UK are now double jabbed, while 10.9million people have had a booster injection.
It comes amid a growing row over the Government’s ‘no jab, no job’ policy, with tens of thousands of care home workers facing the sack tomorrow because they are not fully immunised.The same policy will kick in for frontline NHS workers in the spring.Health Secretary Sajid Javid defended the stance as ‘perfectly reasonable’ and said it will reduce infection rates and protect society’s most vulnerable.But official projections suggest the rule would only spur on 20,000 of NHS workers to get vaccinated, forcing 70,000 out the door when it gets enforced in April.
Care sector bosses called for the deadline for workers to be pushed to April as well, over concerns the move may kill vulnerable residents because homes would be left with ‘unsafe’ staffing levels.
She said two of the staff that resigned were double-jabbed but had reactions to the vaccine and were nervous they would be asked to get boosters.She added there was anger and frustration in the home about the redundancies, with choice ‘taken away’ from employees.Miss Gillett said she had employed four full-time staff members to replace those that had been lost, but was looking for more to cover weekend and evening shifts.She added: ‘I know larger homes are losing a much higher percentage of the workforce and just looking in our local area there’s much advertising going on.’It’s constant and it’s not just one or two positions, they’re advertising double figures because it is such an issue in care homes.’ An unvaccinated mother-of-three in Devon who had been in the care sector for 30 years revealed today that she had also left her post.
Suzanne Cooper, 52, told the Mirror: ‘I’ve never taken a stand against anything but I feel so strongly about it.I don’t think there has been enough testing done on the vaccine.’ The GMB’s national officer, Rachel Harrison, slammed the policy as like ‘taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut’.
She said: ‘It’s cruel and has caused unnecessary heartache and has contributed to care’s potentially catastrophic staffing black hole.’Instead of vilifying our care workforce, they deserve to be treated like the trained professionals they are and paid no less than £15 an hour.’ She said a small proportion of unvaccinated staff were remaining in homes until their exemption from the compulsory vaccines had been considered.Staff can apply for this if they have a medical reason not to be jabbed or had a reaction to the jab until December 23.The chief executive of the National Care Forum, Vic Rayner, warned the ‘no jab, no job’ policy was leaving people who need care ‘unable to get it’.
She told BBC Breakfast: ‘You are also seeing organisations who are saying, unfortunately, they’re no logner able to provide the care for people they have been doing.’ She added: ‘What it feels like for the care home sector is that we’ve been sort of guinea pigs around the implementation and rollout of this policy.’ Business minister Paul Scully has defended the policy, telling Sky News they had all been left with 12 weeks to get their jabs.’I would hope and expect that those people would have that duty of care to the people they are there to serve and protect,’ he said.’Those people, the most vulnerable in our society, the people who are most likely to be hospitalised and, I’m afraid, die of Covid.’That’s what that measure has been all about and that’s why we’re determined to make sure that continues.’ More than nine in ten care home workers have received two doses of the Covid vaccine, official figures suggest.
When the policy was first announced in June some 141,000 workers in older adult care homes had not got two doses of the vaccine.But by October 31, the latest date available, this had fallen to less than 50,000.These figures do not include workers in younger adult care homes, who will also be required to get two doses of the vaccine.This has led unions to suggest that up to 60,000 people may still not be double-jabbed and will lose their jobs.Ministers own estimates suggest some 38,000 workers — or seven per cent of the workforce — likely did not get two doses of the jab before the deadline..
