Health boss confident over mandatory jabs
A senior health chief says he is confident compulsory vaccination will not impact care in the county due to high vaccination rates amongst staff.
Health trust staff already have a “relatively high” coronavirus vaccination rate, so the impact of compulsory jabs is “unlikely to be material”, Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group Accountable Officer Mark Brandreth has said.
On Tuesday, November 10, Health Secretary Sajid Javid MP told Parliament England’s 103,000 remaining unvaccinated frontline NHS staff had until April to receive both doses.
More than 93 per cent have already had their first dose and 90 per cent are fully vaccinated, he added.
Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Group Accountable Officer Mark Brandreth said the change would bring “an opportunity, over the winter, to have another set of conversations with a very targeted group of staff about the benefits of the vaccine”.
NHS figures, released for the first time last month, showed just 790 out of a 11,478-person workforce at the county’s three local health trusts were completely unvaccinated.
At a meeting of the CCG’s governing body, deputy chairman Meredith Vivian asked Mr Brandreth whether the government’s decision to make vaccination mandatory would have an impact on the capacity of the system for patients.
“The uptake of Covid vaccinations from staff has been really very good and very high,” Mr Brandreth said.
“The devil’s in the detail a bit because there are a relatively small number of people who are exempt due to other clinical conditions or particular circumstances,” Mr Brandreth said.
“I’m guessing the target will be 100 per cent of those that are able to have it. We are in a pretty reasonable position with that.
“We have seen a very small number of care staff look to move from care settings into the NHS because it was already mandated in care settings.
“Their time is coming because, if they have moved, they will now be required to have it, and I think that’s right.”
He told Mr Meredith “our honest answer is we’re still doing the work” to estimate the impact, but added that he didn’t think it would be significant.
“If I was going to compare it to some other systems not too far away from us, it’s a much more significant problem than I think it is for us,” Mr Brandreth added.
“Still more to do, and I’m taking it as an opportunity over the winter to have another set of conversations with a very targeted group of staff about the benefits of the vaccine.”
The late October figures said 7,235 healthcare workers at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust – 93.2 per cent of the total – had been given their first dose while 7,008, 90.3 per cent, had had both.
At Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, 1,795 staff, 95.4 per cent, had had one injection and 1,748, or 92.9 per cent, had had both.
The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust had 2,273 single-jabbed staff, a 92.7 per cent rate, while 2,197, or 89.6 per cent, had had both doses.
