Care Homes Face Staff Crisis as Workers Refuse to Return After ‘No Jab No Job’ Policy

A care home resident holding hands with her daughter on Oct. 29, 2021. (Andrew Matthews/PA)

British care homes are facing a staffing crisis as thousands of care workers fired for refusing to take the jab are choosing not to return to work.

COVID-19 vaccinations were made compulsory for all staff working in care homes in England from Nov. 11, 2021, until the law was scrapped on March 15, 2022.

At the time it was warned such a policy for care workers would cause unknown staff shortages. However, the government said that there were to be “unquantified benefits” from the mandate, which it believed were “fairly substantial and long-lasting.”

An estimated 40,000 social care workers left their jobs as a result, which campaign groups said is a “devasting blow.” The sector is now struggling to fill around 165,000 vacancies.

Chair of The Social Care Working Group at the Together Association (also called The Together Declaration) Amanda Hunter told The Epoch Times that the “reality is that a lot of those people have gone now and they are not coming back.”

The Together Declaration, co-founded by Alan Miller, has an ongoing campaign to get the government to apologise, reinstate and compensate fired care workers. He called their firing, “a huge loss and a shameful moment for Britain.”

His organisation was formed in 2021 in response to COVID-19 measures with the mission to “push back against the rapidly growing infringements on our rights and freedoms.”

Health Care Assistant Rose Waddington and ninety-eight-year-old resident John Kykot with "thank you" white roses presented to them by the Mayor of West Yorkshire Tracy Brabin at Norwood House Nursing Home in Keighley, England, on July 4, 2021. (Danny Lawson/PA)

Exodus of Workers

Hunter is also the founder of the campaign group Unlock Care Homes, which wants to put an end to “inhumane visiting restrictions, neglect, and abuse” in all care settings.

She said that the loss of workers from the vaccine mandate “had a huge impact because it was already short-staffed, then this, of course, brought a devasting blow.”

“The consequences are clear, virtually every day there’s a story in the local press about some care home failing,” Hunter said.

“Staffing was a huge element. It’s 165,000 care workers short, but the whole system is on its knees,” she added.

The exodus of workers has left care homes struggling to find qualified staff, raising concerns about the quality of care for vulnerable residents.

Hunter added that there is a risk of neglect with low staff, pointing out that she recently read about a care home that was fined £20,000 over the death of a 90-year-old Alzheimer’s resident who drank cleaning fluid from an unlabelled bottle left in his room.

Despite the easing of pandemic restrictions and the rollout of vaccination programs across the country, many care workers are choosing to work in retail instead of returning to the care sector.

“They can get a job in the retail sector that pays them more money without the stress,” she added.

She said that an apology from the government would send the right message to care workers and could be an incentive for some to come back into the services, however, in reality, “a lot of the workers have now moved on and they were also deeply offended by what happened.”

As the mandate was implemented, the provider body National Care Forum said the policy (pdf) was “unfair and unjust” to single out the care home sector and warned of mounting job losses

The independent regulator of health and social care in England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) did not want to make a specific comment to The Epoch Times but referred to its most recent State of Care report which covers staffing issues post-pandemic in detail.

The 140-page report states that workers leaving because of the vaccine mandate made “a significant impact.”

‘It’s Not an Easy Job’

In 2021, senior care manager Niccii Gillett told GB News that it was “heartbreaking” that she had lost six staff due to the mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.

Reflecting now, Gillett told The Epoch Times that one staff member had come back, but the others left the industry completely, some of whom had been with her for eight years. “It was a big change,” she said.

“The retention isn’t as long and they are not as experienced and as skilled as the ones that left,” she added.

She said that the staff who left were fearful that the government would make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory again in future winters.

Looking back, Gillett said that care workers were portrayed in a negative way and were scapegoated at the time in the media, even though they had to implement “confusing” government guidance often at a couple of days’ notice.

“It’s not an easy job, physically, mentally, you can get paid a bigger hourly rate to work in a supermarket or Mcdonalds,” she added.

She stressed that the vaccine mandate was a factor, but not the singular reason for staff shortages. Providers identified low pay as the key driver of high vacancy rates, which has only intensified with the increased cost of living.

She said she had been in care for 24 years and that it had “always been difficult to attract” staff because of the stigma around care work, and that young people are not coming into care work.

Legal

In some U.S cities, judges have ordered officials to reinstate any workers terminated as a result of vaccine mandates.

However, in the UK, employment tribunals have mostly ruled that care home workers who refused to get COVID-19 vaccinations were fairly dismissed by their employers.

Stephen Jackson, solicitor at Jackson Osborne Employment Lawyers, had pushed for a judicial review, with a case brought by Julie Peters and Nicola Findlay, respectively a programme director and a full-time support worker at a care home who both lost their jobs. The High Court threw the case out in November 2021.

“If someone tried to do that today, then the same claims could be made today and the prospects could be greater,” Jackson told The Epoch Times.

Jackson said that it is unlikely that an employer would be able to get away with such a course of action today.

“The employers relied on the protection of the government policy, saying that it was justified to have required the injection to attend work,” he said.

“The government has changed that policy as it can’t even be argued to be justified anymore,” he said.

Jackson added that an employer who puts requirements for a COVID-19 vaccine today as part of the job description could find themselves “exposed to various claims.”