Today, GB News and Talk Radio interviewed us on this topic. While we believe it is the correct decision to remove the requirement for mandatory vaccination, we also feel that COVID-19 vaccines protect against serious illness and hospitalisation.
The BBC website report on this as of 31/1/22 is below:
Ministers will meet later to decide whether or not to scrap mandatory COVID vaccinations for NHS staff in England.
Front-line NHS workers in England must be fully vaccinated by April 1, meaning they need a first dose by Thursday.
They risk redeployment or dismissal if they do not receive vaccinations by April. Around 77,000 NHS staff are unvaccinated.
Last week, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the jabs requirement was being “kept under review” but that it was the “duty” of NHS staff to get vaccinated.
He told the Health and Social Care Select Committee on Tuesday that, when the policy was announced, the dominant variant was Delta, and it was right to “reflect” now that Omicron was dominant.
The government has been under pressure from some within the health service to scrap the mandate, arguing that it would lead to a staffing crisis.