Barnsley Hospital: 'Very small number' of staff declining to be vaccinated against Covid as government reconsiders mandatory jab policy

Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, yesterday announced that the government will ‘seek to end vaccination as a condition of deployment in health and social care settings’.

Although a formal decision is yet to be made, frontline NHS workers who were not fully vaccinated by April 1 would have been redeployed or dismissed under the mandatory vaccine policy.

Healthcare Unions have previously warned that mandatory vaccines risk worsening the staffing crisis, at a time when the NHS is under great pressure.

Dr Richard Jenkins, Chief Executive of Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said in a report to the board of directors that the enforcing the mandate mean the trust has undertaken ‘very considerable efforts to understand the precise vaccination status of all staff’.

Dr Jenkins added: "The latest position is that there are a very small number of staff who are currently declining to be vaccinated.

"The situation is more complex than a binary vaccinated versus unvaccinated situation as many other individual considerations apply such as pregnancy, maternity leave, medical exemptions and long term sickness amongst others.

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"This requires an individualised approach to be taken with each unvaccinated staff member to work through these factors."

Dr Jenkins' report will be presented to the trust's board of directors at tomorrow's meeting.