Government consultation on removing vaccination as a condition of deployment in health / social care

In November 2021, regulations came into force requiring registered persons of all Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered care homes to ensure that a person does not enter the premises unless they have been vaccinated, subject to specific exceptions, to protect at-risk residents.

In December 2021, further regulations were approved that extended the vaccination as a condition of deployment policy to health and wider social care. The regulations required the CQC-registered person to only deploy workers to undertake a regulated activity if they were fully vaccinated, subject to specific exemptions.

Some provisions, amending the policy in care homes, came into force on 6th January 2022 and the remaining provisions, which extend the policy to health and wider social care, are set to come into force on 1st April 2022, with a timeline that had been set to have received the first vaccination by 3rd February 2022.

Earlier this month, the government launched a consultation seeking views on revoking provisions which require Covid-19 vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and social care settings. It was stated that whilst vaccination remains our very best line of defence against Covid-19, and al people working in health and social care settings have a professional duty to be vaccinated, the view of the government is that it is no longer proportionate to require vaccination as a condition of deployment through statue in health, care homes or other social care settings.

The consultation deadline for response was 16th February 2022.

How will this affect employers?

The guidance applies to all professionals and tradespeople who enter these health, care home and social care stings.

The potential change in government regulation means that all people working in (including all professionals and tradespeople who enter) these health, care home and social care settings will be considered to have a professional duty to be vaccinated, however, it may no longer be a legal requirement.

Employers operating in these sectors will need to validate the vaccination status of their workforce in order to comply with legislation. These employers need to check that any employee required to enter a health, care home or social care setting is fully vaccinated.

Where an employee is not fully vaccinated but is required to enter a health care premises as part of their job role, then discussions will need to be held to set out the risk to their continued employment after 1st April 2022 should they continue to choose not to get vaccinated.

Where an employer is not able to redeploy or offer alternative work to an unvaccinated employee, they may have to dismiss the individual on 31st March 2022 on the grounds that their continued employment would be in breach of the law. This is already the process employers operating in care homes have followed.

Once the government completes the consultation, we will notify our members if the requirements are to be changed. Please contact your SG HR consultant should you require further advice on this subject.

Source: Sophia Konnaris