Care settings in Calderdale to lose more than 100 staff if they are not double jabbed from Covid

Calderdale Council’s Director of Adults Services and Wellbeing, Iain Baines, told members of the council’s Adults, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board said the directorate was focussing on staff for very good reasons at the moment.

The Government’s deadline for staff to be “double dosed” if they are to work in front line care in England is November 11, meaning, because of the time gap between doses, that a person’s “first jab” would have to be administered by September 16.

The authority was working with care providers in Calderdale over this, said Mr Baines, warning it was likely numbers of staff would be lost if they chose not to have two doses of the vaccine.

“The level of risk we think might be anticipated is we might lose 120 people across the whole of Caldetrdale residential provision because they might choose not to have their second doses,” he said.

Representing about 10 per cent of the workforce in these settings, this would see Calderdale faring better than the anticipated national average.

Community prevalence of the virus was quite high and this had been reflected in some of Calderdale’s care settings, residential and nursing homes.

There had been two outbreaks – where there was more than one case – in Calderdale homes, and five providers with “clusters” where there was more than one case but these were not related.

Six other providers had a single case.

Sadly, there had been a death in a care home setting and staff’s thoughts were with the family. It was at a home where all residents had both jabs but the person who passed away had an underlying health condition.

The more transmissable nature of the Delta variant of COVID-19 had been a factor – previously the home in question had not had an outbreak throughout the whole of the pandemic, said Mr Baines.

Since the start of the pandemic, 80 people had died in care settings in Calderdale, said Mr Baines, the second lowest in Yorkshire and the Humber due to the efforts of care providers and partners.

Vaccine take up by staff in the borough’s care settings had been high, said Mr Baines. Three quarters or more of the staff have had a second vaccine dose.

Mr Baines said case rates in Calderdale seemed to have settled at around the 396 per 100,000 people figure which was the most up to date figure before the meeting.

“I don’t think we are out of the woods yet with the Delta variant, and I hope we will continue to collaborate with the sector,” he said.

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