DAUK says the decision not to offer NHS staff Covid vaccines this winter is \u2018irresponsible and extremely short-sighted\u2019.\r\n\r\nThe Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP committee said the decision would lead to increased staff sickness.\r\n\r\nIn a statement, the committee added that it would put them at increased risk of acute and long Covid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The committee said: \u201cThe decision to deny healthcare workers a free Covid vaccine this year is irresponsible and extremely short-sighted.\r\n\r\n\u201cHealthcare workers are offered flu vaccines every year because we are at high risk of exposure to flu and to spreading it, so why are we now excluded from Covid vaccination, other than to save money in the very short term?\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will lead to increased staff sickness and put healthcare workers at risk of acute and long Covid.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt will also lead to higher rates of hospital-acquired Covid, cancelled operations and procedures impacting NHS capacity \u2013 all of which is likely to make the decision more expensive in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs Covid is surging again, some NHS trusts have brought back mask mandates, yet we are expected to pay for vaccination ourselves at some expense.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe Government\u2019s advice on vaccination states an \u2018example price\u2019 for a Covid vaccine of \u00a325, but the cost of a private jab is between \u00a375 and \u00a399.\r\n\r\n\u201cIf the cost doesn\u2019t put healthcare workers off getting one, then companies will be profiteering from the Government\u2019s decision.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe would be very interested to know on what advice the decision was made.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe statement has been used by Doctors.Net.UK<\/a>,<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile DAUK co-chair Dr Ellen Welch, a GP based in Cumbria, has written on the issue on the DAUK Substack.\r\n\r\nShe said: \u201cWe have very short memories when it comes to the Covid pandemic. We don\u2019t want to remember, and understandably so.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut when it comes to minimising the damage of new Covid waves, and indeed any new diseases that come along in the future, we need to look at what did make a difference and implement that within our organisations.\u201d\r\n\r\nRead Dr Welch\u2019s Substack post in full<\/a>.\r\n\r\nDAUK committee members are all volunteers and campaign about issues facing doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK<\/a> or donating to our GoFundMe<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DAUK says the decision not to offer NHS staff Covid vaccines this winter is \u2018irresponsible and extremely short-sighted\u2019. The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP committee…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,59],"tags":[44,331,324,304],"class_list":["post-1453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dauk-news","category-general-practice","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-vaccine","tag-dr-ellen-welch","tag-gp-committee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Short memories<\/h3>\n\n\n\n