Mandatory covid vaccine adding to staff shortage fears

He explained, “A lot of nursing staff have really lost a lot of goodwill for the job,” said Ian Gordon, dental director at Riverdale Healthcare.

“They’ve been working under horrible conditions, in enhanced PPE for 20 months and they’re [thinking], ‘I can go and work in [supermarket] Lidl on their new, enhanced living wage and I won’t have to have a vaccine if I don’t want, and I won’t have to wear full masks and plastic gowns’.

“They will walk and when they walk, I don’t think we’ll easily get them back.”

Ian further discussed, “There is a workforce shortage, a serious workforce shortage in the NHS at the minute, largely driven by Brexit, and if we were to lose that number [seven per cent] from the workforce, it’s not as if there’s going to be dental nurses immediately to replace them, I think it would be fair to say there would be almost a commensurate loss of capacity for dentists to work because by and large dentists can’t work if they’re not supported.”