Mandates were never a good idea, but the government’s U-turn sends the message that vaccines aren’t that important
How do you get health workers to do something as personally intimate and publicly important as getting vaccinated? The government’s response was, until this week, “get vaccinated or get out”. Those in the know have long disagreed with this. The British Medical Association is strongly in favour of vaccines and encourages all its members to get the jab – but it admits that “mandating Covid-19 vaccination raises a number of complicated ethical and practical issues”. The Royal College of Nursing strongly recommends that “all members are vaccinated as soon as they can be” – but is also clear that making the vaccine compulsory could undermine its uptake, and “significantly impact on the retention of staff”.
Both the BMA and the RCN made their stances clear to the government as early as last September. But ministers did not listen. In December, the RCN once more expressed its concerns and called on the government to delay the vaccine mandate. The government ignored it again – until now, when, with a staffing disaster approaching, ministers have been forced to acknowledge the facts and back off from compulsory vaccination.
Stephen Reicher is a member of the Sage subcommittee advising on behavioural science. He is a professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews, a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an authority on crowd psychology
