A pledge to offer the vaccine to all care home staff by the end of January has been missed, a government minister has admitted.
Helen Whately hailed the “milestone” of making jabs available to all older residents in more than 10,000 homes, but for a small number where visits were impossible because of Covid-19 outbreaks.
But, under questioning, the care minister, admitted the target to offer jabs to all staff in those homes as well had not been achieved.
“It will take a little more time, I think, to get through all the care home staff,” Ms Whately said.
However, the minister dismissed suggestions of forcing staff to receive the vaccine in order to carry on working in care homes, insisting it was better to persuade them to take it up.
And she was unable to say when visits would restart – after the policy of allowing in one regularly-tested family member was scrapped before Christmas because of the more virulent variant of coronavirus.
Ms Whately also ducked a question about a promised trial of 24-hour vaccinations of citizens, which has yet to get underway.
The inoculation of care home residents is seen as a crucial step in beating the pandemic, after the blunder of discharging infected patients from hospital led to more than 20,000 deaths in the first wave.
The success of the rollout means almost nine million people have now had their first dose – including 9 in 10 people over 80 – after a record 598,389 vaccinations on Saturday.
However, the government’s deployment plan, published on 11 January, stated: “It is our ambition to offer the vaccine to all care home residents and staff in the more than 10,000 care homes in England for older people by the end of January.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 4, Ms Whately said staff had been offered vaccines alongside residents – and could receive them elsewhere – but acknowledged: “We know that we are still working through the care home staff.”
However, the minister was contradicted later by Downing Street – ahead of official figures – a spokesman saying: “We have offered the vaccine to residents and staff at every eligible care home with older residents across England.”
Asked if jabs could be compulsory for staff, Ms Whately said: “What we are doing is to educate, to encourage, to able to make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated, to reassure people to come forward.
“That absolutely feels like the right way for us to go about this at the moment, so that we can get through as many care workers as we can.”
And, on the prospect of visits resuming, Ms Whately defended giving as many people as possible a first vaccine – to give some protection to all the most vulnerable people by mid-February.
Second jabs in care homes would not be fast-tracked because “we want to protect as many people as we possibly can, by getting the first job to them”.
But, the minister added: “We’re looking right now at what could we possibly do over the weeks ahead to try and enable more individual visits to start again.”
