“Two or three” Oxfordshire County Council workers lost their jobs for choosing not to be vaccinated against Covid 19. 

Laws passed by national government meant all care home workers or anyone entering a care home had to prove they had received two doses of the vaccine or that they were exempt from November 11 last year. 

The policy will cease from Tuesday March 15, leaving many who did not want or refused to have the jabs angry over the loss of or threat to their livelihoods.

Deputy director of adult social care Karen Fuller was asked about the scale of job losses at this week’s meeting of the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

She said: “It is to do with the individual employer but from a county council perspective, we were able to look at redeployment opportunities into posts that did not have that condition of employment. 

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“They were very, very small numbers, in the end it was two or three people out of a workforce of 947 at the time.” 

On the vaccination rates, she said: “We have just under 100 per cent compliance because there was that requirement for anybody going into a care home. I am really pleased with that and to be fair, the majority of staff worked with us on that.

“We had made that a condition of employment but as people will be aware, the government did a bit of a U-turn on that. It is no longer a requirement of employment, however, in terms of good practice we are encouraging staff to take up the vaccine and the booster accordingly.

“In relation to our health colleagues, we have done a lot of work to promote this and a lot have been vaccinated but again, it is not something we can mandate.”

It followed on from claims that NHS staff are being asked to prove their vaccine status despite similar rules for such settings being scrapped. 

Councillor Iwade Edosomwan asked for clarification having said: “I know from some of the emails and letters I have had that some NHS workers at present are still being asked for a Covid vaccine certificate.”

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The county’s director of public health and wellbeing Ansaf Azhar replied: “I believe there is no mandate for compulsory Covid vaccination certificates at the moment.

“We have encouraged our healthcare staff to do this and by and large, our uptake in our health and care sectors is very, very good.

“I think that is the right way to go about it rather than mandating. Whether it is vaccination or behaviour change, reaching out to the public and explaining things, getting them to trust and building that relationship has been the most effective way of doing this. 

“As a system in Oxfordshire we have managed that well.”