Mandatory Covid Vaccinations – Position statement from EEAST

On 9^th November 2021, the Government, via the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), released the formal communication that any staff undertaking CQC regulated activities in England must be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no later than 1^st April 2022.

As an NHS employer, we at EEAST have always proactively encouraged the use of vaccinations to protect our staff and patients. We have run our flu vaccination programme every year and more recently, our Covid-19 vaccination programme which saw 96% of our patient facing colleagues receive their jab.

Until the announcement from the DHSC, EEAST had not been involved or updated formally on the decisions being made. As a result, we are still in the consultation phase with NHSE. We want to establish what this means for us as an organisation, how this will impact our people and what options are available to us so we can plan for next steps.

As soon as a decision has been made, we will notify you and your team by email and on Need to Know. In the meantime, if you do have any questions or concerns, please speak to your line manager or email the OCE email address.  

Below are a few points of clarification based on queries from colleagues within EEAST:

• The announcement relates to the first and second doses of the vaccine and, at this stage, does not include the booster dose or Flu vaccine.
• EEAST is regulated by CQC and so all our patient facing staff will be subject to this announcement. Exemptions such as being medically exempt, under 18, or non-patient facing staff will be clarified by the DHSC shortly.
• For those currently not vaccinated, the latest date for the first dose would be 3^rd February 2022 to allow time to get your second dose by 1^st April 2022.
• As part of our commitment and obligatory standards of practice for NHS and healthcare workers, in line with the Health and Social Care Act 2008, conditions of deployment have always included the need for immunisation status checks to ensure the protection and wellbeing of our staff and the patients we serve. The ‘Green book’ on immunisation of healthcare and laboratory staff, for which the anticipated regulation relates to, says the following:

Any vaccine-preventable disease that is transmissible from person to person poses a risk to both healthcare professionals and their patients. Healthcare workers have a duty of care towards their patients which includes taking reasonable precautions to protect them from communicable diseases. Immunisation of healthcare and laboratory workers may therefore:

• protect the individual and their family from an occupationally-acquired infection
• protect patients and service users, including vulnerable patients who may not respond well to their own immunisation
• protect other healthcare and laboratory staff
• allow for the efficient running of services without disruption

The legislation that is being proposed takes this rationale and makes it a mandatory condition of deployment in a patient facing role to have the Covid-19 vaccination.

 

Published 29th November 2021