Five care workers at a Merseyside respite centre are refusing to take the covid vaccine and will be sacked under new legislation.
The chief executive of Southport based company Revitalise, which provides respite holidays for disabled people to give unpaid carers a break, claims seven other vaccinated staff members are also threatening to resign in protest.
The new 'no jab no job' law, due to come into effect on November 11, means that any care worker entering a registered care home in the UK must be double vaccinated against covid unless they have a valid medical exemption.
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Unions have reacted with fury, claiming the law would "decimate" the already creaking social care sector, but the Government claims it is necessary to protect the most vulnerable over winter.
Revitalise CEO Jan Tregelles says as things stands the Southport centre would lose 29% of its overall staff when the law comes into effect - and described the potential for the "worst staffing shortages in history".
She said: "For Revitalise and for the care sector, the mandatory vaccination policy will, if implemented, have devastating consequences.
"Throughout the first, second and third waves of the pandemic, my brilliant and dedicated colleagues have successfully cared for some of society’s most vulnerable through rigorous infection control measures and the use of PPE, often sacrificing time with loves ones to do so. Now, we are having to tell them ‘no jab, no job’.
"At a time when Revitalise is already dealing with staffing shortages, five longstanding colleagues are subject to consultation because they do not wish to be vaccinated and another seven, who have had the jab, are so outraged that they are threatening to resign in protest.
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"To be clear, this is not because my colleagues wish to put our guests at risk, it is because they believe in their human right to bodily integrity and because they know that the measures that we already deploy keep our guests safe.
"They also cannot understand the logic of the regulations, which will not apply to residents or their visitors, nor to NHS workers...
"Without these colleagues, we may have to close our centre – putting the rest of the charity under threat. We are not alone; care home providers up and down the country are facing the same, impossible position.
"I therefore urge the Government to think again about the mandatory vaccination law and work with care providers to ease, not exacerbate, the staffing crisis, to seek more balanced ways to encourage vaccination take up and to consider a range of different measures to ensure that care workers and the cared for, are looked after safely.
"Otherwise, they will be crippling a social care sector facing the worst staffing shortages in history."
At the time the law was announced in June, then Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: "This is the right thing to do and a vitally important step to continue protecting care homes now and in the future.
"I’d urge anyone working in care homes to get their jab as soon as possible."
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