Concerns over 'misinformation' as more than a third of care home staff in parts of region yet to have Covid jab
More than a third of care home staff in parts of the region have not yet had the Covid jab, according to new figures.
Public Health England data shows that in Wolverhampton 29 per cent of care home staff could have been vaccinated by now but haven't.
In Sandwell it was 28 per cent and it was 27 per cent in Dudley.
The region's highest figure was in Birmingham, where more than a third (36 per cent) of care home staff have not yet been vaccinated.
Health chiefs have conceded there is a problem with vaccine hesitancy among care home staff, and have vowed to combat "misinformation" that has spread about the jab.
Dr Lola Abudu, director of health and wellbeing for Public Health England (PHE) in the West Midlands, said the vaccination uptake in care home staff "isn't where we want it to be".
She said although the vaccine had been available to care home staff since January, some of them did not want to be "first in line".
"They want to see how it's gone and make their decisions following that," she said, adding that it would be wrong to force people to have the jab "when they're not ready".
Dr Abudu added that there were concerns over "the amount of misinformation that is about" and said the NHS was working to ensure people had "access to the right information".
Concerns
"Some concerns in particular I have got," she said, "is that this is overwhelmingly a female staff group and we are also talking about people from black and minority ethnic populations, and Eastern European workers.
"Fertility has been a concern, and we know that the vaccine does not impact on fertility from the data we have at the moment.
"I think there is also something about accessibility, because this is shift work and whether people are around when the vaccine is being offered.
"We need to deal with all of these issues to give people the best opportunity to take up the vaccination."
Clive Wright, Covid-19 regional convenor for the West Midlands, said the situation was "improving".
"As they see others who go forward and do become vaccinated, that picture changes, so we're optimistic that we will improve on that situation as we go forward," he said.
He added that there was a "huge effort" in the NHS to work with care home leadership teams to give the right information to encourage staff to come forward.
Prof David Loughton, chief executive of the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, said there was often an initial reluctance of NHS staff to take the flu jab.
He said staff were now being seen on a "one to one" basis in a bid to encourage them to take the Covid vaccine.
Care home staff are in the top four priority groups for vaccination, and are eligible providing they have not been diagnosed with Covid in the previous 28 days.
