For the past 16 months, employees of the health and social care sector have worked tirelessly to continue providing high-quality care and support to the most vulnerable people in our society during a pandemic that took everyone by surprise.

Last week marked the final easing of restrictions, which for many people has brought mixed emotions. A form of normality has returned but, the virus is still out there and we need to continue to be safe and keep others safe.

The one big difference, which gives us all valuable and sustained reassurance, is the vaccination. Many of you, your colleagues, and service users will have already been vaccinated with one, hopefully, two doses, of an approved COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccination has to be comprehensive to be truly effective as protection, particularly for those most vulnerable to infection.

SAGE recommended levels of at least 80% for staff and 90% for service users have been reached in some parts of England, but only 65% of CQC registered care homes meet this minimum level.

With the intent to get all CQC registered care homes to at least this minimum level or above, the government, following the ‘Making vaccinations a condition of deployment in care homes’ consultation, has now to made coronavirus vaccinations compulsory for care home staff who work within care homes which have at least one person over the age of 65 living in their home.

These new regulations come into force on 11th November 2021, with the 16 week grace period which started last week on 22nd July 2021. The timeline outlines the date by which all care home workers need to be vaccinated. It states that 16th September 2021 is the last date for care home workers to get their first dose so they can ensure they are fully vaccinated by the time the regulations come into force in November.

It is important that between now and 16th September we encourage as many of our teams to get vaccinated so that they will be able to comply when the regulations come into force in November. Getting vaccinated means we are able to keep skilled front-line social care workers, like yourselves and your teams, supporting those who need it most.

If you would like any more information on the above or have any questions, please reach out. To get in touch, call 03305 552233 or email [email protected].

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we provide a proactive and consultative approach to recruitment in Social Care. We help organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage, and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard-to-fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

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