Care home staff refusing vaccinations as flu cases rise, council warns

Camden Council has said it plans to do more to increase vaccination uptake among care home workers in the borough after a report revealed some were refusing jabs.

At a meeting of the health and wellbeing scrutiny committee on Tuesday (7 January), director of health and wellbeing Kirsten Watters said that pushing for vaccinations was a key way to protect public health during the winter months.

But amid a cold snap and “much higher levels of flu” in the capital, there are concerns that efforts to control viral infections may have been hindered by vaccine hesitancy in care homes.

Watters’ latest report stated that although 2024 had seen 22 more vaccines given to care home workers, some were still declining the offer — prompting the council’s plans to engage more staff this year.

Cllr Larraine Revah pressed the director for more detail on these measures, to which Watters explained that ranged from training for staff to having conversations with the more “vaccine-hesitant” workers — some of whom “may have had no immunisation at all”.

Watters did assure that Covid-19 infections and admissions were decreasing, although other respiratory infections were rising — including HMPV (human metapneumovirus).

Yesterday, the NHS in London urged people in the capital to get vaccinated, as the most recent figures revealed there were “more people with flu in the capital’s hospitals than at any point last year”.

During Covid-19, all care home staff were legally required to have been vaccinated against coronavirus in order to work in those facilities, though this was revoked in 2022.

For flu jabs, government guidance states that “all frontline social care worker should be encouraged to get the vaccine provided by their employer, both to protect themselves and those they care for”.