Sajid Javid tells care home staff to get a Covid-19 jab or find another job in a furious attack on Britons who ‘cannot be bothered’ with the vaccine
- Sajid Javid has told care home staff refusing a Covid-19 jab to ‘get another job’
- He said people who ‘cannot be bothered’ shouldn’t work with vulnerable people
- Also refused to ‘pause’ rollout of legal requirement for care home staff in England to be vaccinated
Care home staff who refuse the Covid vaccine should ‘get out and get another job’, Sajid Javid has said.
In a furious attack on people who ‘cannot be bothered’ to get the jab, the Health Secretary said he is ‘very clear’ they should not be working with the country’s most vulnerable people.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, Mr Javid said: ‘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.
‘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.’
Care home staff who refuse the Covid vaccine should ‘get out and get another job’, Sajid Javid (pictured) has said
Mr Javid added: ‘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.
‘They should go and get another job. I am very clear on that.’
The Health Secretary also refused to ‘pause’ next month’s rollout of a legal requirement for care home staff in England to be fully vaccinated.
Responding to Mr Javid’s comments, Tory MP Michael Fabricant said: ‘Anti-vaxxers and similar take perverse joy in endangering the lives of others.’
The care industry has warned of staffing shortages and that some care homes will not be able to cope if unjabbed staff have to leave.
Nadra Ahmed, chairman of the National Care Association, yesterday called for the November 11 deadline to be pushed back.
She told Radio 4: ‘We are not anti-vaccine. What we are saying is we needed a bit more time to get people where they needed to be.’
Responding to Mr Javid’s comments, Tory MP Michael Fabricant (pictured) said: ‘Anti-vaxxers and similar take perverse joy in endangering the lives of others’
She added that take-up has already improved, with 86 per cent of staff now fully vaccinated. A year ago just 40 per cent of staff had said they planned to get the jab, Ms Ahmed said.
‘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.’
Mr Javid last month launched a consultation into extending the requirement for vaccines to all frontline NHS staff.
The care industry has warned of staffing shortages and that some care homes will not be able to cope if unjabbed staff have to leave (stock image)
The NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts in England, said ‘the focus must remain on increasing vaccine confidence’ rather than requiring health workers to be vaccinated.
Meanwhile, the Government has continued to roll out its booster jab programme. Yesterday saw 153,160 more daily booster doses administered in England, bringing the total to more than a million.
Invitations are being sent out to eligible people to arrange an appointment through the NHS’s National Booking Service. The over-50s, vulnerable groups and healthcare workers can get a booster six months after their second dose.