Sajid Javid: unvaccinated care home workers should ‘get another job’

Deadline of November 11 looms for UK care home staff to be inoculated against Covid-19

People take photos at Westminster Bridge in London. The British health minister has said that the country will not be imposing a Covid-19 'vaccine passport' system to verify vaccination status at concerts, nightclubs and other venues. Getty Images

Runners take part in the 40th Great North Run in Newcastle upon Tyne. Approximately 57,000 runners were expected to take part in the half marathon. Getty Images

The Great North Run, which was cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, was held with several coronavirus safety measures in place, including route changes, staggered start times and hand sanitiser stations. Getty Images

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Fans play cricket outside the Emirates Old Trafford venue in Manchester after the fifth Test against England was cancelled over Covid-19 concerns. PA

A Covid-19 vaccination sign outside a hospital in central London. EPA

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Care home workers who object to being vaccinated against Covid-19 should “get another job”, the UK’s Health Secretary has said.

Last month the British government said staff must be inoculated by 11 November 11.

The move was criticised by the trade union Unison and industry group the National Care Association.

The latter, which says 86 per cent of staff are fully vaccinated, has called for an extension to the deadline, citing fears of staff shortages.

But Health Secretary Sajid Javid gave an uncompromising message on the matter.

“If you want to work in a care home you are working with some of the most vulnerable people in our country and if you cannot be bothered to go and get vaccinated, then get out and go and get another job,” he told the BBC.

“If you want to look after them, if you want to cook for them, if you want to feed them, if you want to put them to bed, then you should get vaccinated. If you are not going to get vaccinated then why are you working in care?

“If you think about your elderly relatives you might have in care homes, and the idea that someone wants to look after them and they don’t want to take a perfectly safe and effective vaccine that has been approved by our regulators, been used all over the world, because somehow they have got some objection to this vaccine, then really, honestly, they shouldn’t be in our care homes,” Mr Javid said.

Commuters cross London Bridge towards the City of London on Thursday, the day that Britain's furlough programme closed after supporting millions of workers over the past 18 months. All photos: Bloomberg

Sarah Edmiston, the company Administration Manager, chats with her colleague store employee Martin Matio at a branch of the Tool Shop hardware stores in the Bayswater area of central London. AP Photo

The furlough scheme was introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, offering a wage-subsidy lifeline for millions of employees who could not work because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Diana Gaglio, unemployed since pandemic, said: “I am worried. I mean, there seems to be quite a lot of temping stuff out there so it does feel like there might be some work but in terms of long term future I am concerned about what I am going to be doing." AP Photo

Many have flagged concerns about the labour market after the end of the government's scheme. Bloomberg

"I don’t know if we will ever get back to the figures pre-Covid because of the way the workforce, the 9 to 5 office workers, will work in the future" said Sarah Edmiston. AP Photo

The furlough scheme had been extended beyond its initially planned closure date.

But trades unions, employment experts and businesses now fear ditching the scheme could add to Britain’s financial woes and are calling on Britain's government to protect workers.

Nadra Ahmed, chairwoman of the NCA, said the rule could have severe consequences if the deadline was not pushed back.

“We are not anti-vaccine. What we are saying is we needed a bit more time to get people where they needed to be. The situation is chronic now with staffing, and that deadline will just add to it,” she said.

“We will have providers who are no longer able to staff their services safely and that can only mean they will have to be handing back contracts.

“They will have to be looking at whether they can minimise the number of beds that they use to keep themselves open, which will have a direct effect on the NHS’s ability to discharge people out of hospital and into care settings.”