England Halts Mandates For Health And Care Home Workers

England Halts Vaccine Mandates For Health And Care Home Workers

Lily Zhou via The Epoch Times,

England’s CCP virus vaccine mandates for health care and care home workers are set to be scrapped, subject to consultation and parliamentary approval, the UK’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid said on Monday.

Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid arrives for a cabinet meeting at Number 10 Downing Street in London on Jan. 25, 2022. (Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)

The latest government U-turn came just three days before the deadline by which National Health Service (NHS) and other health care workers would have to get their first doses to avoid redeployment or termination.

The deadline will no longer apply while the government carries out a two-week consultation on the proposed policy reversal before putting a motion to Parliament for approval.

However, the vote in Parliament could be a formality as the main opposition Labour Party - which supported the mandates - said it will also support the government on their reversal.

In the previous consultation on mandating the vaccines for older adult care homes, 57 percent of the respondents opposed the proposal, while 65 percent of those responding to the consultation on extending the mandate to the NHS and wider social care sector were against the mandate (pdf). In both proposals, the responses from the sectors were mixed, while the service users—who the mandates aimed to protect—mostly opposed them.

The policy reversal means patient-facing NHS and other health and social care staff who choose not to take the virus vaccines will not have to be redeployed or sacked from April 1.

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