UK government proposals to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for care home workers and other healthcare professionals are ‘profoundly unethical’, according to a Catholic bioethics expert.

In a statement, David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, said threats to dismiss or redeploy staff “fails to show respect for those on whom society depends to deliver care, and who have also suffered disproportionate risk and hardship during this pandemic.”

“Such threats also undermine the freedom of the consent that is needed before administering vaccination, or any other medicine.”

Jones added: “Many people, including Pope Francis, have argued that in the current circumstance people have a prima facie duty to accept vaccination against COVID-19. However, insofar as there is such a duty this does not apply in the same way to all, but depends on people’s circumstances. Furthermore, such a duty is not something for public authorities to impose on its population, and especially not on those care workers to whom we, as a society, owe so much.”

Jones continues: “The question that needs to be asked is why people have been reluctant to accept vaccination when it is available. What is needed is an approach that builds trust and also maintains goodwill within the team. Good care depends above all on goodwill and happiness at work among the staff. Staff need to be listened to and to have their concerns addressed or their reasons understood.”