CORONAVIRUS

Sajid Javid tells medical regulators to insist staff get jabs

Sajid Javid scrapped the plan to enforce mandatory vaccination but wants regulators to take action
Sajid Javid scrapped the plan to enforce mandatory vaccination but wants regulators to take action
TAYFUN SALCI/ZUMA PRESS

Medical regulators must crack down on unvaccinated staff, the health secretary has said as he tries to deal with the fallout from abandoning compulsory jabs.

Sajid Javid has rebuked regulators and demanded that they send a “clear message” to healthcare workers that they must get a coronavirus vaccine.

Unions warned him against an attempt to introduce compulsory vaccination “by the back door” after his last-minute retreat on a legal requirement for frontline staff to be fully vaccinated.

Javid announced last week that the policy would not go ahead, days before hospitals were due to start sacking staff who had not been vaccinated before a deadline on Thursday. He cited the lower risk from the Omicron variant, against which two vaccines offer little protection, although