Britain’s Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has called for a U-turn on the mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for health workers.

Under current plans, staff must have their first vaccine doses by February 3, and double jabbed before the policy kicks in on April 1, Patricia Marquis, RCN director for England told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“We will say that COVID is still a serious disease and will absolutely urge all nursing staff to get vaccinated but the situation has changed in that Omicron. This is serious for those who were unvaccinated but actually overall as a country things have improved,” Ms Marquis. “But the most important issue for us right now is the fact that there are so many nursing vacancies already.”

According to her, it makes no sense to risk losing thousands of registered nurses and health care support workers from both health and also what’s been lost from social care.

She added, “This actually puts patients at more risk than not having nurses at all so we think the situation needs to be reviewed urgently and quick decisions need to be made before we start to lose people from the system.” 

(dpa/NAN)