There’s been much in the media today about the fact that the Government is to ‘require’ care workers to have the Covid-19 vaccination in order to continue working in front line support. Those who don’t will either have to be moved into work that doesn’t bring them into contact with residents or dismissed.

While the employment law implications are one which may worry business owners, the decision throws up a whole series of HR issues for that particular sector – ones which may also have implications for a lot of employers in the broader health/social care sector (which includes many of my charity clients)

Firstly, it’s important to remember that no vaccination is required by law in the UK.  The often quoted example that ‘doctors and nurses must have a Hepatitis B vaccination’ is based on clinical guidance issued by Public Health England which is then adopted by individual NHS and other healthcare employers as part of their health and safety policy/risk assessment process.  

If the government introduce a specific law (which would take some time to go through the parliamentary processes) or regulation (which wouldn’t) then sacking someone who fails to comply would be fair in law as a ‘statutory restriction’. (Update 21/6/21 – the change will be introduced by regulation, effective October 2021) An employer must still go through a fair process – exploring redeployment options before taking a decision to dismiss – and a dismissal would be with contractual or statutory notice.

If however they introduce the new rules as (prescriptive) guidance then it will be down to the individual employer to build them into their health and safety policy and recruitment guidelines.  While employers would be expected to follow them, it would be very difficult to justify dismissing someone (or not recruit someone) using the statutory restriction argument. Employers would probably have to rely on the catch all “some other substantial reason”, again ensuring that they dismiss with appropriate notice.

In addition to the risk of potential unfair dismissal claims, the sector already faces serious staff shortages with some estimates that there are 100000+ vacancies at the moment. The prospect of sacking otherwise competent staff at a time when it is difficult to recruit, and reducing further the number of prospective job candidates, is likely to cause further problems.

Care businesses will also need to communicate the changes clearly and effectively to staff; take time to collect appropriate vaccination records; perhaps give time off for people to be vaccinated; and ensure that staff understand the consequences of not being vaccinated. This is particularly important for the small number of people who are advised not to have the vaccination because of a health condition, which may mean there are also disability discrimination issues to be addressed.

None of this is to say that the aim of having all care home workers vaccinated (or indeed health and social care staff more generally) is a bad one. But we have seen too many instances in recent years of rushed new regulations being implemented without proper thought-through consequences, and subsequently having to be amended or repealed, for employers to be confident that another hastily announced policy will be any more effective.