Tom Hunt (Centre for Care Co-Investigator and Deputy Director of SPERI (Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute) is joined by Rachel Harrison (Public Services National Officer, GMB) to discuss the issue of mandatory vaccination for care home workers in England. Since November last year, it has been mandatory for all care home staff in England to have had 2 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of their deployment in a care home. The introduction of this policy has led to debate and concerns about the ethics of mandatory vaccination, it has also raised questions about the employment model in the care sector, about UK government’s willingness to meaningfully engage with care workers and about the respect and value given to care work, and to the people providing it.
The policy has been in effect for 3 months, today’s episode explores the impact so far, and what some of the wider implications might be.
Useful links from this episode
Read Tom’s paper, ‘Under-paid and under-valued: assessing mandatory vaccination for care home workers’ here:
http://circle.group.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Mandatory-vaccinations-for-care-home-workers_final.pdf