Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the mandatory covid-19 vaccination program for social care workers announced on 16 June 2021, whether he plans to exempt employees who are shown to already have covid-19 antibodies in their system from mandatory vaccination; and if he will publish the advice to support that decision.
The regulations to make vaccination a condition of deployment, laid on the 22 June, require care home providers to deploy only those staff and volunteers who have received a complete course of their COVID-19 vaccination, unless they are medically exempt.
There will be a small number of people where the clinical advice is that the COVID-19 vaccination is not suitable for them. Further details on this will be outlined in guidance, which we will provide in due course. This guidance will give more detail about exemptions, which will reflect the Green Book on Immunisation against infectious disease and clinical advice from the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation.