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Compulsory Vaccinations & Employment
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RailUK Forums
I don't think you can compare most jobs to operating heavy machinery or working on a construction site.
A lawyer is comparing a hard hat and goggles to being forced to take medical treatment? One to avoid there.
If your lawyer friend doesn't appreciate the difference between employees being required to wear safety equipment and being required to undergo a medical treatment, then I'd be looking for a better lawyer.
Busaholic
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Vaccination is not medical treatment per se.
I suppose we could split hairs over that, but the Public Health Act 1984 - the rather wretched piece of legislation that has been used to dictate the minutiae our lives for the last 16 months - defines it as such.
Section 45E:
(1) Regulations under section 45B or 45C may not include provision requiring a person to undergo medical treatment.
(2) “Medical treatment” includes vaccination and other prophylactic treatment.
Elwyn
Member
It’s mandatory for doctors to have a hepatitis jab, for Health & Safety reasons, and has been for years. So requiring mandatory jabs for certain jobs is a long established health & safety PPE arrangement.
Whether or not Covid should be included is perhaps a separate discussion but the law seems to accept that if an employer does a risk assessment on an area of work and decides a measure such as a Covid jab is essential then, provided they have been reasonable, the courts will usually back them. And before anyone argues it’s discriminatory, as I understand it, H & S law over-rides most discrimination law.
Whether or not Covid should be included is perhaps a separate discussion but the law seems to accept that if an employer does a risk assessment on an area of work and decides a measure such as a Covid jab is essential then, provided they have been reasonable, the courts will usually back them. And before anyone argues it’s discriminatory, as I understand it, H & S law over-rides most discrimination law.
Perhaps so, though the way you bring this up shows why people are rightly very wary of embarking on anything that can turn into a slippery slope.
Are we really comparing that a *doctor* is required to take a very well-established and very well-understood vaccine against a fairly serious disease so that they don't pass it on to their patients during surgery, against the fact that millions of *office workers* may be required to take a brand new vaccine - that hasn't even completed clinical trials - against a disease that is very mild in the vast majority?
There is nothing 'reasonable' about being mandated to take an (experimental) medical treatment to continue doing a job - which you may have done perfectly well for years without any prior expectation or requirement that the employer will make such demands. Plus, what if an employee is 'required' to have a vaccine in order to keep their job, and then has a serious side-effect from the vaccine that causes long-term illness or injury? It seems that is a breach of the employers Health & Safety obligations to that employee - it cuts both ways.
Elwyn
Member
Nothing is ever completely safe, and what the employer has to weigh up are the greater benefits of protecting the majority of patients (and staff) from serious illness and death, against the much lower risks to the individual member of staff who might have a side effect. And this is in the context of a particularly high risk environment like a hospital or care home. So the need to protect patients & care home residents is arguably rather different to protecting conventional office staff. When seatbelts became compulsory, there were arguments about certain accidents where not wearing a seatbelt would have saved a life. That’s perfectly true. However overall seatbelts significantly reduce the risk of injury and so they became mandatory even if occasionally that leads to an otherwise avoidable injury or death. This issue strikes me as similar.
It’ll be for the courts to determine what’s “reasonable” and I am quite sure if enforced, this will end up there.
Private Eye’s MD (Dr Phil Hammond) said in the most recent edition that he favours mandatory jabs for healthcare workers. He also makes the point that the NHS and Care Sector struggle to fill all their vacancies as it is, and mandatory jabs may put some folk off, so it could have a negative effect on recruitment. But he seems to think that a risk worth taking.
It’ll be for the courts to determine what’s “reasonable” and I am quite sure if enforced, this will end up there.
Private Eye’s MD (Dr Phil Hammond) said in the most recent edition that he favours mandatory jabs for healthcare workers. He also makes the point that the NHS and Care Sector struggle to fill all their vacancies as it is, and mandatory jabs may put some folk off, so it could have a negative effect on recruitment. But he seems to think that a risk worth taking.
But the thread started with discussing an office-based company (that publishes books) requiring vaccination from their staff to return to the office. Admittedly we didn't stick to discussing just that.
I agree that there is a somewhat stronger argument for healthcare workers. In my opinion it is still far too weak an argument to justify in this case, but certainly stronger than say for office-based staff.
Continuing to vindicate my decision last year to terminate my very long-standing Private Eye subscription
RuralRambler
Member
Indeed. But not just doctors. My OH was a dental nurse. The Hep B jab was a requirement of the job back in the 90s. No jab, no job. So, yes, there is precedent for compulsory vaccinations. I suspect it will come down to evaluation on a job by job/industry by industry basis as to what's reasonable and what isn't, as part of risk assessments.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
What is interesting is how things will pan out in high risk non medical areas, such as Universities. As it stands, it seems neither the Unis themselves nor their staff have wanted to be on campus over the past year, hence the sheer amount of working from home, online lectures, empty Uni blocks etc. Obviously that can't carry on for a second year. So, what's the answer? There's enormous pressure from students for Unis and staff to get back "to normal", i.e. proper face to face teaching, lectures, seminars, tutorials, etc. But at the same time, lecturers seem reluctant to be in what they consider "risky" environments, i.e. close confined spaces with large numbers of students. Obviously vaccination (both students and staff) is the answer. But what if certain lecturers refuse to be vaccinated AND refuse to do "risky" face to face teaching. Whose "rights" trump the other party??
Elwyn
Member
I would think it will come down to how strong the evidence for jabs is. (And I don’t know the answer to that).
When I was responsible for risk assessing some new areas of potentially hazardous work, we employed a court accredited expert who was ready to give evidence to explain why he had recommended certain safe systems of work and the PPE that went with it. We consulted unions and staff and checked to see what other organisations were doing. You also need to consider work around solutions which mitigate or avoid the hazardous task altogether. But ultimately if the expert advice is to make something mandatory - be it wearing a hard hat or vaccinating your staff - then you either do it or stop the task. A whole lot of litigation could follow if you ignored that advice and deliberately and recklessly endangered staff or those under your control (eg customers or patients). You personally could be liable in certain circumstances.
It’ll be the same for universities and other employers. I’d guess they’ll be consulting a whole lot of experts, not just one, and there could/should be an industry wide approach to some generic aspects.
But if enough experts say mandatory jabs are more or less essential to a safe system of work in a certain location, then the employer is likely to have to go along with that. There will then be a big row and perhaps some legal challenges during which the experts will probably be asked to justify their advice. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome.
When I was responsible for risk assessing some new areas of potentially hazardous work, we employed a court accredited expert who was ready to give evidence to explain why he had recommended certain safe systems of work and the PPE that went with it. We consulted unions and staff and checked to see what other organisations were doing. You also need to consider work around solutions which mitigate or avoid the hazardous task altogether. But ultimately if the expert advice is to make something mandatory - be it wearing a hard hat or vaccinating your staff - then you either do it or stop the task. A whole lot of litigation could follow if you ignored that advice and deliberately and recklessly endangered staff or those under your control (eg customers or patients). You personally could be liable in certain circumstances.
It’ll be the same for universities and other employers. I’d guess they’ll be consulting a whole lot of experts, not just one, and there could/should be an industry wide approach to some generic aspects.
But if enough experts say mandatory jabs are more or less essential to a safe system of work in a certain location, then the employer is likely to have to go along with that. There will then be a big row and perhaps some legal challenges during which the experts will probably be asked to justify their advice. It’ll be interesting to see the outcome.
Alternatively the answer should be that vaccination is available to everyone who wants it, the risk to most people who are in a university setting is low anyway, and they should just get on with it as they have perfectly well for previous centuries.
You've managed to highlight my main concern perfectly! It'll come down to a job by job evaluation, but if the people making said evaluation have a warped sense of risk (for example, believing that spread in a university is 'high risk') then you end up with compulsory vaccination by stealth.
OK, to de-Covid this debate a little...
Suppose you were required to travel to another country as part of your work duties, and you required vaccination for (let's say) Malaria...
How would that stand legally? Your employer would presumably have a duty of care/responsibility to protect you against that, and could reasonably request that you are vaccinated as condition of travel.
That seems a contractual issue to me. My current employment contract has an explicit clause that I may be required to travel outside the UK as part of my job, which presumably means they expect me to (a) have a current valid passport and (b) to satisfy any conditions of entry into the countries I would be required to go to. Without such a clause I'm not convinced an employer could demand an employee travel abroad anyway.
From a H&S perspective, I'm not entirely sure how that stands up; I guess if there was any such issue I would require legal advice.
After yesterday's announcement it may appear that the rules could be if you are vaccinated your don't need to self isolate, however for those (look at what's required for school children) without being vaccinated then it's daily tests.
That could mean that the least that is likely to be added to contacts is "we highly recommend that you get the vaccine for Covid, without such a vaccine if you're a close contact we will require you to have daily tests which if you test positive you will need to self isolate for X days."
That could mean that the least that is likely to be added to contacts is "we highly recommend that you get the vaccine for Covid, without such a vaccine if you're a close contact we will require you to have daily tests which if you test positive you will need to self isolate for X days."
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