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The NHS has been struggling for years withÌýchronic underfundingÌýand staff shortages.

COVID has only made matters worse. Health Secretary Sajid Javid is now warning thatÌýNHS waiting listsÌýfor non-emergency operations and procedures couldÌýgrow to 13 millionÌýup from 5.3 million in July 2021 while increasing numbers of patientsÌýwait in ambulancesÌýoutside hospitals.

Last week, NHS bosses warned thatÌýpatients’ lives areÌýat risk because NHS staff are overstretched and exhausted from working through the pandemic. The NHS is still at leastÌý84,000 healthcareÌýworkers short. That’s 6.5% of its workforce.

The last thing the health service needs right now is to loseÌýtens of thousandsÌýof NHS staff, but under a new government policy that will make COVID vaccines compulsory for frontline health workers, that is likely to happen.

Research shows healthcare workers are an important source ofÌýinformation about vaccinesÌýfor patients, family, friends and wider society. But, unfortunately,Ìýour recent researchÌýshows not all NHS staff feel confident being vaccinated.

Let me be clear: I strongly believe everyone should get vaccinated against COVID if they can. I’ve spent many weekends volunteering as a vaccinator, and over the last 18 months I’ve been studying the effect of the pandemic on healthcare workers as part of theÌýUK-Reach study.

NHS staff were among the first to be offered COVID vaccines, in early December 2020. That month we surveyed nearly 15,000 healthcare workers and found almost a quarter were hesitant aboutÌýreceiving a vaccine.ÌýAs in the general population, hesitancy was driven mainly by lack of trust in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, in employers, and in authority more widely. Healthcare workers who were pregnant were seven times more likely to be hesitant.

Younger healthcare workers were more likely to be hesitant. Staff identifying as white but not British or Irish were 1.5 times more likely than the white British ethnic group to be hesitant, those from Black African ethnic groups were twice as likely to be hesitant, and those from Black Caribbean ethnic groups were three times as likely to be hesitant.

The Reach study found many healthcare workers who were initially hesitant in the first few months of the vaccine rollout became more confident, but around one-third of healthcare workers who were hesitant between December 2020 and March 2021 remained so when we asked them again between April and July 2021.

Those who remained hesitant at this later date tended to feel less informed about vaccines, be less likely to trust vaccine information from official sources, and to have been advised against vaccination by family and friends. We’re currently following up our cohort of healthcare workers again to find out their attitudes towards compulsory vaccination.

Of course, staff who are vaccinated are much less likely to fall seriously ill or die from COVID, and take fewer days off sick. It also reduces the risk thatÌýstaff will infect patients.

But the research makes me concerned that mandatory vaccination will further erode trust in vaccines among some healthcare workers. There isÌýsome evidenceÌýincluding a large survey of more than 17,000 members of the UK public in April 2021 to explore attitudes to vaccine passports, that policies that require vaccinations for certain activities canÌýreduce willingnessÌýto get vaccinated. The uptake of boosters isÌýalready slow, so I worry a policy of mandatory vaccination might actually end up making that slower.

This article originally appeared in on 18^th November 2021.

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