Former care home boss from Cleveleys calls for vaccine deadline for carers to be pushed back
From today care home workers in England have to be fully vaccinated in order to continue working.
A former care home manager from Cleveleys is calling for the government to push back the vaccine deadline for carers to get jabbed.
From today, care home workers in England have to be fully vaccinated in order to continue working.
Adam Purnell, former boss of Kepplegate Nursing home in Poulton and now head of social care at the Institute of Health and Social Care Management, said: "The idea of mandating the vaccine on paper is a good idea...however I think we need to consider the wider spectrum of services and social care.
If everyone (care homes), or a large proportion of social care providers, are at unsafe staffing levels, then there is going to be risk of harm that was preventable.
"We've got annual leave that people are going to need to take so that they've got that rest and recuperation time and if we're going to lose a proportion of the work force, which we are going to, it is going to be in the high tens of thousands...and the other thousands are still waiting for their second dose so they're not going to be readily available to work.
"If we then end up with additional sickness and people are going to be working well above their contracted hours...people won't be able to rest and are going to burn out.
"So we're going to have the mental health and well-being of not just the care work force but also the management work force at stake and I know full well managers have had to cancel a number of events because they've had to go on the rota."