Covid-19: Vaccination Programme

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 24th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, the Chief Medical Officer was entirely right. As the noble Baroness probably knows, there are already important requirements on health care workers who, for instance, do surgery or are in certain risky clinical situations to have the right vaccines, hepatitis being one in particular. Having up-to-date vaccines is a condition of engagement for some medical staff. The noble Baroness is right to raise the question of social care. We are looking at the right policy in that area. We want to tread carefully and to take social care workers with us. We are aware of the risks in social care, but we do not want to provide barriers for employment. Getting that decision right will be one of the most important things that we do.

[Lord Cormack (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I would like to follow on from that. My friend has a 99 year-old mother in a care home and she is naturally very glad at the prospect of more frequent and slightly less distanced visits. She has not held her mother’s hand for over a year. She is deeply concerned that some of the care workers in the home, who have to attend to some of her mother’s most intimate needs, have declined vaccination. Should not the rule in care homes be, in the words of a recent Times leader, “no jab, no job”?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My noble friend puts it very bluntly. At this stage of the rollout, when the vaccine has not been made available to everyone, it is too early to make that kind of decision. However, he makes the case well and I hear it loud and clear.