SCORES of care home staff across Cheshire West and Chester can no longer enter their usual place of work today because they have not been fully vaccinated.

The Government had set a deadline for yesterday (November 11) for care home staff to be double jabbed or risk losing their jobs. As of today, a total of 67 staff are not fully vaccinated.

The loss of the workers – which represents two per cent of the care home workforce in the borough – places even more pressure on an already beleaguered sector, which has been facing problems nationally due to recruitment shortages and funding shortfalls.

Cllr Val Armstrong, Cheshire West and Chester Council's cabinet member for Adult Social Care and Public Health, said: "Vaccines have been widely promoted throughout the borough and care home staff have been actively encouraged to take up the vaccine.

“Care home staff were amongst the first cohorts invited to be vaccinated and many vaccines have been administered within care homes to residents and staff."

Figures published by NHS England show that nationally, more than 56,000 current staff in care homes for younger and older residents had not been recorded as having received both doses. Several thousands of these are understood to have self-certified as medically exempt or to have applied for formal proof.

Cllr Armstrong added: "All care homes however have robust plans in place to ensure care continues and do not expect this to affect the levels of care provided, while the remaining unvaccinated staff either take up their vaccine – so have had one vaccine but not yet had the second – or are redeployed or dismissed."

The Government said the measures are ‘vital to protect the most vulnerable'. But the UNISON union said the sector was ‘sleepwalking into a disaster’ and had urged ministers to scrap the requirement.

And this week, Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid also announced that frontline NHS workers in England will need to be jabbed to continue in their jobs from April 1 next year, unless they are exempt.