Mandatory Vaccination for front-line healthcare workers

Thursday 27 January 2022

On 14 December 2021, Parliament approved draft regulations (the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) (Coronavirus) (No. 2) Regulations 2022) making it compulsory for all front-line workers providing services regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) to have had a full course of an authorised COVID-19 vaccine. This follows similar regulations enacted in July 2021, which only applied in care homes.

These changes will mean that being fully vaccinated will be a strict requirement for any workers deployed for the provision of a CQC-regulated activity who has face-to-face contact with patients or service-users. Whilst this obviously includes clinical staff, such as doctors and nurses, it also includes non-clinical staff, such as porters and receptionists, who may have incidental contact with patients because of the locations they work from.

As currently drafted, the regulations only allow exemptions on medical grounds, meaning that there will no allowances for anyone refusing to be vaccinated due to (for example) religious or philosophical beliefs. Any affected health and social care workers that think they may be exempt will need to apply for a formal exemption in order to continue performing their role. They will have until 31 March 2022 to secure formal proof of their exemption.

If a CQC-regulated frontline worker refuses to have the vaccination and does not have a medical exemption then the employer will have grounds to terminate their employment. However, it is important that employers follow a fair procedure including considering redeployment to another role not caught by the new rules.

The new rules (which can be found in full by clicking here) are effective from 1 April 2022. This means that affected workers will need to: have had the complete course of doses of an authorised vaccine by 1 April 2022; and, therefore, have had their first dose by 3 February 2022. The Regulations do not require affected workers to have booster doses.

In response to the new legislation, not only have there been public protests and demonstrations, but medical and care bodies (including the Royal College of GPs) have also raised concerns about the potential consequences for the NHS and called for the implementation of the rules to be delayed. The main fear is that many workers will refuse the mandatory vaccinations (according to the BBC there are currently around 85,083 unvaccinated staff – albeit not all will be patient-facing roles) and will become ineligible to work in a frontline healthcare setting.

Coming at a time when the NHS is already overwhelmed with the burden of COVID-19, on top of the usual seasonal illnesses, an exodus of front-line workers could have a crippling effect on national healthcare provision. Thus far the Government has steadfastly refused to countenance any such delay.

If you have any questions about mandatory vaccination in the workplace, please email or call our Employment Law team today on 0113 207 0000.