UK government pressures NHS staff to get vaccinated despite scrapping mandatory jabs

The UK government pressures NHS staff to get vaccinated despite scrapping mandatory jabs.

ENGLAND’S Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and other UK government officials are pressuring NHS staff to get vaccinated, despite scrapping mandatory jabs for the healthcare sector.
Whitty took to Twitter to reveal a letter he had written to NHS colleagues along with the Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Midwifery Officer, Medical Directors and others.
“I have written to NHS colleagues about the professional responsibility to protect patients from COVID-19. This includes getting vaccinated, as the great majority have,” he said.
In the letter, Whitty writes it is the healthcare workers “professional responsibility to reduce the risk of infections to others as far as possible. Getting vaccinated against diseases that can be passed person-to-person in healthcare settings is part of that responsibility.
“Questions of professional responsibility and legal mandation are separate. Mandation is rightly for ministers and Parliament.
“The professional responsibility, which is for the professions, predated discussion of mandation, and is widely agreed by professional bodies, colleagues, regulators and others. The public reasonably expect it of those who care for them or their vulnerable relatives because it is one of the simplest things that we, as healthcare workers, can do to protect patients,” he said.
UK’s Health Secretary, Sajid Javid, also joined in by adding that it was their “professional responsibility to get their COVID-19 jab to protect themselves and their patients.”

Healthcare staff have a professional responsibility to get their COVID-19 jab to protect themselves and their patients.

Thanks to @CMO_England and @NHSEngland colleagues including @CNOEngland @NikkiKF and @NHSEnglandNMD for their message to staff today. https://t.co/xk8FUR7Y01

— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) February 8, 2022

Sir Whitty said that the “COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective” and “provide a very high degree of protection from serious disease. They also provide protection from becoming infected.”
However, the professor had to preface this by stating: “We all know that this protection from infection is not absolute, just as almost every treatment you provide improve the chances of, but does not guarantee, a good outcome.”
Pushing for people to get their booster jabs, the 55-year-old continued: “Professional healthcare is about maximising the chance of a good outcome. Whilst we can be infected if vaccinated, getting vaccinated reduces that risk, particularly after your booster dose, and if you are not infected you can pass the virus on to your patients.
“There is now good evidence that being vaccinated provides additional protection to those who have had a prior infection from being infected again,” he said in the letter also signed by chief midwifery officer Professor Jacqueline Dunkley-Bent, chief nursing officer Ruth May, and NHS medical director Professor Stephen Powis, among others.

With the Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Midwifery Officer, Medical Directors and others, I have written to NHS colleagues about the professional responsibility to protect patients from COVID-19. This includes getting vaccinated, as the great majority have. pic.twitter.com/1MxfWWP9OQ

— Professor Chris Whitty (@CMO_England) February 8, 2022

 
Sajid Javid told the Commons last month that ministers planned to scrap a legal requirement for frontline NHS staff in England to be vaccinated against Covid.
He said at the time that ending the policy, which also affects social care staff, was under consultation in light of the Omicron variant, which is less severe than the Delta variant.