Private healthcare providers should update redundancy procedures to take account of government’s consultation on removing the legal requirement for healthcare workers to be double vaccinated, lawyers have said.
The call follows government’s publication of a consultation on removing the requirement.
The consultation was confirmed in Parliament by health secretary Sajid Javid yesterday who said the u-turn to remove the requirement was because the Omicron variant is “intrinsically less severe” than the previous Delta variant it has overtaken, with hospital admissions approximately half the level.
When asked about the release of the consultation document, timings and scope of the consultation itself, a Department for Health and Social Care spokesperson told Health & Protection further details will be set out in due course.
No guarantees
But Melanie Stancliffe, partner at Cripps Pemberton Greenish, told Health & Protection while the consultation is a welcome step for all healthcare providers, it leaves them in an uncertain position.
“There is no guarantee that the consultation will recommend that mandatory vaccinations be overturned, although that is likely from the government’s statements,” Stancliffe said.
“If it does, there is no certainty for employers that both the consultation outcome and Parliamentary approval will change the position before the 1 April deadline.
“This leaves employers having to implement processes now to comply with the law, but in the knowledge that law may soon change.
“The best advice for employers is to follow your redundancy and redeployment exercises now and time the redundancies and role changes to take effect just before the 1 April deadline, building in the condition that if the law requiring vaccination is changed before 1 April, the anticipated decision will not take effect.”
Try and talk workers out of leaving
According to Jacqueline McDermott, partner at Keystone Law, providers should focus on speaking to anyone who has tendered their resignation and try and talk them out of it.
“Once you served notice on someone, you can withdraw it and they can agree to stay,” McDermott said.
“That would be a question of if they have actually served notice and somebody who has actually resigned, having a conversation about withdrawing that resignation and persuading them to stay.
“If you’re going through a process and you haven’t yet made a notice of termination then you need to stop the process but it depends on where they are in the process whether they can stop it, whether they can try and withdraw notices of dismissal and get staff to stay or get them to withdraw resignations and get them to stay.
“Every situation is going to be slightly different and some employers may not actually want to retain staff who haven’t been vaccinated.”
Pause processes
Chris Tutton, partner at Synchony Law, noted that providers should pause redundancy processes while government reviews its plans and confirms the repeal of the requirements.
“If the planned requirements for mandatory vaccination are abandoned, then employers should communicate this to staff as early as possible, and in the vast majority of cases they should not proceed with redeployment or dismissal of staff – both of which would now be much harder to justify in light of the repeal of the mandatory vaccination regime,” he said.
“We expect the news is a relief for employers, many of whom are facing staff shortages.”
Also commenting on yesterday’s developments, Independent Healthcare Providers Network director of regulation Dawn Hodgkins underlined the importance of vaccinations.
“Independent providers have been working tirelessly in recent months to support those staff who are vaccine-hesitant to get vaccinated,” Hodgkins said.
“While vaccination will no longer be a condition of deployment, providers in the sector will continue to encourage staff to get the vaccine and ensure that patients are as safe as possible”