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Regulations requiring GPs and staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 set to be revoked

Regulations requiring GPs and staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19 set to be revoked

GPs and their patient-facing staff will no longer be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by 1 April, the health secretary has announced.

Sajid Javid said the regulations would be revoked subject to a consultation and a House of Commons vote.

In a statement to MPs last night, Mr Javid said the policy had been right ‘in retrospect’, ‘given the severity of Delta’.

‘It was the right policy at the time – supported by the clinical evidence – and the Government makes no apology for it,’ he said.

However ‘given that Delta has been replaced’ by Omicron it was ‘only right that our policy on Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment is reviewed’.

The review, which was informed by the UK Health Security Agency and chief medical officer, determined that the rapid spread of Omicron over Christmas meant the ‘population as a whole is now better protected against hospitalisation’ from Covid.

A quarter of England’s population (24%) have had at least one positive Covid test, while 84% of over-12s are double-vaccinated and 64% have had a booster jab.

The ‘second factor’, said Mr Javid is that Omicron ‘is intrinsically less severe’.

‘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 it is no longer proportionate to require Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment through statute.’

He also said the Government had ‘to consider the impact on the workforce in NHS and social care settings. Especially at a time when we already had a shortage of workers’.

Following the announcement, NHS England has told PCN clinical directors and GP providers not to serve notice of termination to unvaccinated employees.

A letter said: ‘We are aware that, based on the guidance already issued to the service, you will have begun to prepare for formal meetings with staff on their deployment if they remain unvaccinated. This change in Government policy means we request that employers do not serve notice of termination to employees affected by the VCOD regulations.’

However it added that NHS England still expects providers to provide a report on unvaccinated staff, with a deadline of tomorrow.

The letter said: ‘There is currently a live SITREP request which is due for submission on 2 February. We request that this is still completed with the exception of the details in relation to service impact, which are no longer required.’

The news comes as a Pulse survey yesterday revealed that almost 60% of GPs were in favour of the NHS Covid vaccine mandate.

However, the Government’s U-turn was welcomed by the BMA, which said the decision was ‘the right one’.

BMA council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said that ‘while the BMA fully supports the vaccination rollout, it is now clear that the impact of mandatory vaccination on NHS staffing levels at a time of acute workforce shortages and a record waiting lists, would have put the continuity of healthcare services at risk and therefore compromised patient care and safety’.

He added: ‘To lose a further 50,000 staff in one fell swoop because of this policy would have been devastating for the workforce, services and patients, resulting in millions fewer GP appointments and hundreds of thousands fewer hospital procedures each year.

‘Therefore, today’s decision is the right one, and is a more proportionate approach that takes into account the changing nature of Covid-19 and how differently the now dominant, and highly-transmissible, variant Omicron behaves compared with Delta.’

RCGP chair Professor Martin Marshall said: ‘Making Covid-19 vaccination mandatory would have had severe workforce implications at a time when general practice, and the wider NHS, is experiencing enormous workforce and workload pressures.

‘We simply can’t afford to lose highly-trained staff in general practice when we need as many as possible delivering patient care.’

The RCGP had called for a delay to the implementation of the mandate last week, while LMCs had warned that some GP staff had already begin resigning over the requirement.

Also last week, the health secretary told the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee that while it is the ‘professional duty of every NHS worker to get vaccinated’, ‘no one wants anyone, not one person, to leave the NHS’ because of the mandate.

There had been fears that up to 3,000 GP staff would have had to be dismissed, as NHS England guidance said redeployment into non-patient facing roles was ‘not guaranteed’.

And, while 58% of GPs responding to Pulse’s snapshot survey regarding the vaccine mandate in the last week had said they support mandated vaccines, many also expressed workforce concerns.

Out of 286 GP partners who responded, 102 knew of unvaccinated staff within their practice – and of those, more than two thirds (71%) said they would be unable to redeploy the unvaccinated employees.


          

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READERS' COMMENTS [1]

Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles

Patrufini Duffy 1 February, 2022 3:18 pm

Some other Professors wanted them mandatory. Not so vocal now.