Even though 75% of UK adults have now received their second coronavirus jab, and nearly 90% of care home workers have received a first dose, there is still an estimated 12% of staff in older adults care homes who are eligible for the vaccine that have not received the jab at all.
COVID-19 vaccines help protect people against the virus by boosting immunity and decreasing the risk of spreading the virus, which is important in areas such as care homes where there is a large volume of high-risk people.
As a result, the UK government has introduced a new legislation on July 22, effective from 11 November 2021, that will require people working in care homes to be fully vaccinated.
On September 15, Director of Adult Social Care Delivery, Claire Armstrong, released an official statement confirming the decision.
She also outline the reasons care home workers could be medically exempt from getting the jab.
A 16-week grace period will be put in place to ensure staff who have not been vaccinated, will be able to take up the jab before the regulations come into force this autumn.
“The Department of Health and Social Care has been working as quickly as possible to ensure that people who are not able to get the vaccine for medical reasons are not disadvantaged,” Claire wrote.
Care workers exempt from the vaccine
Since Wednesday September 15th, people working or volunteering in care homes who have a medical reason why they are unable to get vaccinated, have been granted the ability to self-certify that they meet the medical exemption criteria.
The concerned workers have to use the official form attached to Claire's letter and will be able to do so on a temporary basis only.
In the letter, Claire has stated that care home workers who are exempt will need to sign the form attached to her letter and give it to their employer as proof of their temporary exemption status.
As this the letter is a temporary self-certification process that has been introduced for a short period, it will soon be replaced by the new NHS COVID Pass system, which has already gone live following the release of the Director's official statement.
She wrote: “Once the NHS COVID Pass system is launched, care home workers will need to apply for a formal medical exemption through that process.
“This temporary self-certification will expire 12 weeks after the NHS COVID Pass system is launched.”
Who is exempt from the vaccine?
The letter included a non-exhaustive list of examples of medical exemptions from COVID-19 vaccination which were the following:
Workers receiving end of life care where vaccination is not in the individual’s interests
Workers with learning disabilities or autistic individuals, or with a combination of impairments which result in the same distress, who find vaccination and testing distressing because of their condition and cannot be achieved through reasonable adjustments such as provision of an accessible environment
Workers with medical contraindications to the vaccines such as severe allergy to all COVID-19 vaccines or their constituents
Workers who have had adverse reactions to the first dose (for example, myocarditis)
The official statement also revealed that time-limited exemptions will be available for those with short-term medical conditions (for example, people receiving hospital care or receiving medication which may interact with the vaccination).
A time-limited exemption will also be available for pregnant people if they choose to take it.
Exemptions for conditions listed in section 4.4 (special warnings and precautions for use) in the Summary of Product Characteristics for each of the approved COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna) may also be considered.
Individuals that have received a COVID-19 vaccination abroad can also self-certify as medically exempt, as the government has found that it is not clinically appropriate for them to be vaccinated in the UK if they have already received a partial or full course of vaccination overseas.
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