Dimensions fully supports our workforce choosing to be vaccinated

Steve Scown, Chief Executive of leading social care not-for-profit Dimensions, comments: Today, the Secretary of State for Health has personally put the wellbeing of many thousands of disabled people at risk with his announcement that vaccination will become mandatory for virtually all social care workers. This decision will do far more harm than good. Support providers have spoken as one on this issue. We are staggered that he has not listened and Dimensions fully supports our workforce choosing to be vaccinated, but mandatory vaccination alone will not keep people safe. Already, many good colleagues have left. We will be forced to dismiss more on Friday when the first set of new regulations come into force, and now anticipate yet more dismissals in April. The government’s own analysis says that 40,000 social care workers will leave their jobs working in registered care homes due to mandatory vaccination. In extending this regulation to those working in supported living, in home care and in a myriad of other care environments, many thousands more people will leave to work in other sectors. As a result, support providers will face unprecedented operational challenges. This decision threatens safe care for disabled people right across the country. It undermines the choice and control people have over who supports them. It will also put the viability of many providers at risk. Now is the time for government to learn about social care. To address social care in policy terms as an equal to the NHS, not a postscript. Spending a few pounds on a social care recruitment campaign is very far from the answer.