Vaccination: Condition of Deployment

Baroness Wheatcroft Excerpts

Thursday 3rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As ever, the noble Baroness is absolutely right. Once again, I thank her personally for her frequent advice and questions, based on her years of experience. This gives me the opportunity to be quite clear: just because we are intending to revoke VCOD does not mean that we should let up in the fight against this virus. We need to continue to be vigilant, to wash hands, to respect space, and we hope that many people will continue, as in this Chamber, to wear face masks in crowded places and to ventilate areas, particularly when you are with people that you do not know and do not normally associate with. We should not give up on those; in fact, some of those measures, especially handwashing and others, are good common sense anyway, whether we have a virus or not. We hope that one of the lessons from this whole Covid experience has been the need for better hygiene and for us to be more aware. We cannot yet let up. We may have revoked VCOD, but it is really important that we continue to battle against this virus.

On the first question, about understanding the very real concerns, as the noble Baroness said earlier, I do not think we should simply categorise people as anti-vaxxers or pro-vaccine and virtuous; I think we need to understand their reasons. I had conversations this week when I was chairing the round table with local community organisations and I made the point to them that we want to learn from them. It is all very well for me, as a Lords Minister, to say this, but they understand much better in the community. Sometimes, it is a lack of trust. Sometimes, there are historical trust reasons. Sometimes, it is people’s personal experience. Noble Lords will have heard the recent story about the police, for example: it does not exactly engender trust in figures of authority within certain communities. It just shows the spillover effect of all these issues—discrimination, racism, but also lack of trust—and we have to be quite clear that we understand individual communities. Sometimes, even though they are in the same ethnic community, they may live in different parts of the country and respond in quite different ways. It is very easy to group people and say, “Oh, all BME, all Asians or all disabled people feel this way.” These people are individuals, and we need to understand their concerns.

[Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)]

My Lords, whatever the reasons people refuse to be vaccinated, the Statement says more than once that it is a professional duty of those working in the health service or in care homes to have the vaccination. Therefore, I rather agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that it is an unusual situation in which those who breach their professional duty will be allowed to continue in the role. Can the Minister tell us whether what appeared to be a decision taken through thorough research and as a matter of principle has now been changed, not because of principle but because of practicality—we need these people in the health service because of the terrible shortage of staff?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

One of the things we have constantly done has been to listen—I had daily calls over the Christmas period, for example—and follow the evidence. Clearly, one of the issues may well have been staffing and warnings of potential shortages, and we had to balance all that up. As the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, said, these things are nuanced; there are number of different factors we have to consider.

As for professional responsibility, on more than one call I have been on with senior NHS staff, clinicians and senior practitioners, they have told me that in their codes—for example, the GMC code and the nursing code—there is a professional duty to be vaccinated against transmissible diseases. Clearly, that is an issue. The NHS has had to speak to individual clinicians, those who have been reluctant, to try to press that issue, but clearly it came up against freedom of choice. It is difficult and I may not understand it, but we all think differently, which is why we have such great diverse thoughts and debates. It is really important that we understand individuals’ concerns and we can address them, but we are not going to be able to persuade everyone.