More than one in ten care home workers across Merseyside are yet to receive a first covid-19 vaccination - with a deadline looming for all carers to get jabbed.
Analysis of NHS data shows that across the five boroughs of Liverpool, Wirral, Knowsley, Sefton and St Helens, there are a total of 1,364 eligible staff working at older adult care homes - including agency staff - who had not received their first jab as of August 22.
This is more than 10% of the total number of 12,686 eligible staff working in older adult care homes across the five boroughs.
Read more: Vaccine to be mandatory for care home staff in England from November
In a bid to protect vulnerable residents in care homes, all eligible staff must be double-jabbed by November 11 under new government rules.
So the fact that around 10.75% of those working in homes in the region still haven't had their first jab - despite this being widely available for many months - is a concern for several reasons.
Some of the region's boroughs are worse than others in terms of care staff being vaccinated.
In Sefton, there are currently 431 eligible staff in older adult care homes who have not taken up a first jab - this is 12% of that cohort.
In Knowsley the numbers are even higher, with 120 (13.25%) of the 906 eligible staff yet to get a vaccine.
Liverpool and Wirral both have figures of around 10% of adult care home staff yet to get a jab, while St Helens has the lowest number at around 8%.
There will be concerns that such a high number of people in our region who are working with those who are the most vulnerable to Covid-19 have not taken up the offer of a jab, with the vaccine shown to reduce transmission of the virus.
But there are also real concerns about a major staffing crisis that could arrive with that November 11 deadline.
Nadra Ahmed, chief executive of the National Care Association, said she was "extremely concerned" over the impact of unvaccinated workers being forced out of care homes, come the November deadline.
She said the industry is already struggling to fill 115,000 vacancies.
Ms Ahmed said: "We are extremely concerned at the impact of this, which we believe was never properly thought through. We have a huge number of vacancies already and because of this legislation more people have left or are leaving.
"Some members of staff are not taking the vaccine for a number of reasons, personal and cultural, and their loss will be badly felt.”
She added: “The care sector has been discriminated against through this legislation, which only adds to the problems we already have of fatigue and vacancies."
The legislation was put forward by the Government following evidence of vaccine hesitancy among care staff in some areas of England and followed advice from the Social Care Working Group of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies that 80% of staff in a care home needed to have received a first vaccination jab to ensure a minimum level of protection against outbreaks.
The Department of Health and Social Care estimates around 7% of the care industry workforce – around 40,000 workers – risk being lost as a result of making vaccination a condition of employment in care homes.
A DHSC spokesperson said: "Vaccines save lives and while staff and residents in care homes have been prioritised and the majority are now vaccinated, it is our responsibility to do everything we can to reduce the risk for vulnerable people.”
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