Hundreds of Birmingham care home staff remain unvaccinated as deadline arrives

From today (Thursday 11 November) all care home workers in England are legally required to be fully jabbed against coronavirus to continue in their role, unless they are medically exempt.

Birmingham City Council has reveled that 7.2% of staff have not been double jabbed - which amounts to 477 care home staff in total.

The council had been anticipating losing between 1,592 to 2,929 staff from the sector due to lack of vaccine take up, so there has been a significant improvement since the requirement was announced.

Previously some care homes had less than 50% uptake of the vaccine among staff.

The council said that back in July only 22 homes had 100% of staff fully vaccinated. They are now confident that at least 113 care homes in the city have a full complement of staff who are double jabbed.

The local authority has praised the ‘herculean effort from care homes, their staff, commissioners and the NHS’ who have seen 92.8% of care home staff in the city double jabbed and legally compliant to work.

What happens to care home staff in Birmingham who haven’t been double vaccinated?

The council said that some of those who haven’t been double jabbed have chosen to leave the sector.

But many won’t be leaving and are currently off sick, on maternity leave and will be returning to work double vaccinated as and when they return

There are 224 staff who have only had one jab.

Care homes have been flexible and these staff who will be on leave or not on shift until they are fully vaccinated. It is not expected that these staff will leave the sector.

A spokeswoman for the city council said: “The council has worked very closely with all Birmingham care homes throughout the pandemic and continues to offer support, but the situation remains incredibly challenging.”

The national picture

Official NHS figures due this afternoon are expected to show that, as of 7 November, more than 50,000 current care staff have not been recorded as having two vaccine doses.

Of these, several thousand workers are understood to have self-certified as being medically exempt, or have applied for formal proof.

Additionally, of staff not fully vaccinated by 7 November, more than half are thought to have had one vaccine dose.

t is expected that the number of staff double jabbed will have increased in the three days between Sunday and Thursday (7-11 November), but it is still unclear how many workers have already quit over the mandatory requirement.

The number of staff in care homes in England has fallen by more than 4,000 since the deadline to get first doses in mid-September, according to NHS England figures up to the end of October, although this is thought to be due to multiple reasons.

Can unvaccinated care home staff be redeployed?

Care home staff who are still unvaccinated after the 11 November deadline face losing their jobs.

However, care home providers can choose to redeploy staff into non-frontline roles, if these are available, or have the option to put them on paid or unpaid until they have had two vaccine doses.

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