I am writing concerning the recent legislation that the Government has passed to mandate covid vaccination for NHS staff and I am concerned about the threat to staff and the implication for resources.

There is little coverage of this in the local media and I would like to know why not ? when you will feature this campaign of NHS workers opposing mandates?

The Government has decided to force all healthcare workers to be “fully vaccinated” as a condition for deployment and treating patients face to face. Whatever words and terminology the Government uses, this is ‘mandatory vaccination’.

From a covid liberty and personal freedom point of view this is unprecedented.

Consent for a treatment is a basic human right and it is a legal duty to obtain informed consent from patients before carrying out any medical intervention.

Consent also has to be autonomous, in other words a person has to be free to make choices on matters relating to their body. Controls imposed by others, lack of information, coercion overt or covert, duress, fear of recrimination, intimidation, misrepresentation of facts and anytime that would limit freedom of patient choice, make any “consent” made under these circumstances, null and void.

If a person decides to have no treatment, this is naturally totally within their rights, and this should be respected.

For consent to hold true in a Court of Law, it must be voluntary and hold up to all the conditions mentioned above.

By all accepting definitions of the word, mandatory vaccinations go against the very meaning of consent. Consent is the cornerstone of medical ethics and International human rights law. The Government states that it isn’t mandating vaccines on anyone but simply making it a condition for deployment. This is simply playing with words. The result is the same: no jab, no job.

Mandatory vaccinations set in place a dangerous precedent. Never before have governments decided what people should have done with their bodies. It does away with bodily autonomy , personal freedoms and choice. This is duress and coercion, this is not choice or free will. And this applies to thousands of other healthcare workers, admin and auxiliary staff. How will the NHS not crumble under the weight of more staff shortages? These people have decades of experience . They cannot be ‘replaced’ by temp or agency staff. Patients will be harmed as a consequence.

Yesterday it was care workers, today healthcare workers, who will it be tomorrow?

Covid-19 vaccines aim to protect the vaccinated from serious disease, but data now shows unequivocally that none of the vaccines prevent you catching or transmitting Coronavirus. Most recently a study in The Lancet https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00648-4/fulltext concluded that breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people can efficiently transmit infection in the household setting. The concluding paragraph is very important, and ruins the public health for Covid Passes and mandatory vaccinations.

“Although current vaccines remain effective at preventing severe disease and deaths from COVID-19, our findings suggest that vaccination alone is not sufficient to prevent all transmission of the delta variant”

The mandate goes against the advice of the UK Parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report into Covid-19 status certification, which found that the Government could not make a string scientific case for vaccine passports, and that they would be discriminatory. How is this not the case here?

Mandatory vaccination damages informed consent. The council of Europe resolution on Covid-19 vaccines urger Member States to “ensure that citizens are informed that the vaccination is not mandatory and no one is under political pressure to be vaccinated if they do not wish to do so; ensure that no-one is discriminated against for not having been vaccinated, due to possible health risks to nor wanting to be vaccinated”

All around Europe there are huge protests which show the strength and feeling and opposition to this proposed illiberal ‘papers please’ medical two-tier society.

Please consider the serious implications of mandatory vaccinations for the members of staff who work in the NHS and the respective NHS Trusts. Please write back to me and confirm what you will do to prevent this from taking place at your earliest convenience.

Mrs Rachel Denney

Clifton Road, Poole