By UKHCA’s CEO, Dr Jane Townson. Figures on uptake of vaccinations correct as at 2nd February 2021. Information about the National Booking System added to this blog on 11 February 2021.
A rapid survey of homecare providers’ experience of vaccination of the homecare workforce in England against COVID-19 was conducted by United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA) from 27 to 29 January 2021. The survey covered employers of staff who are in group 2 of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s priority list (“JCVI-2”).
Responses were received from 379 providers and covered 111 (74 per cent) of the 151 Upper Tier authorities with responsibility for Adult Social Care in England.
The sample represents employers of 27,210 homecare workers, the majority (95 per cent) of whom were in organisations mostly delivering “hourly” or “visiting” homecare. The remaining 5 per cent were working for “live-in” homecare providers, where homecare workers live full-time in the homes of the people they support.
Data indicate that around 32 per cent of the workforce in the sample already appear to have been vaccinated. Given the numbers of staff involved and the extremely short period for these workers to obtain vaccination, it is to the immense credit of everyone concerned, including local government, central government, the NHS, GPs, primary care networks and employers that this has been achieved.
There is clear evidence of a strong willingness on the part of most homecare workers to be vaccinated.
This is a really encouraging start. The data, however, show a substantial variation in vaccination rates both within and between local authority areas. Some providers reported that almost all their eligible staff have been vaccinated whilst others reported none having received the COVID-19 vaccination.
This is a matter of timing; some local areas have been well ahead of others, vaccinating members of the workforce even before the official “Standard Operating Procedure” was published. All local areas are progressing vaccinations.
Our data also showed that specialist providers of “live-in” care services face additional challenges to obtain vaccinations for staff. This is because careworkers are typically working with clients in a different local authority area from where their employers’ office is based.
By 15 February 2021, the UK government’s aim is to have offered a first vaccine dose to everyone in the top 4 priority groups identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI):
- all residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
- all those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers
- all those 75 years of age and over
- all those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
Based on the findings of this survey, meeting the government target could prove a challenge at the current rate of progress in some areas.
Skills for Care estimates there to be 715,000 jobs in homecare compared with 680,000 in care homes, so the homecare workforce is larger than the care home workforce and harder to reach because careworkers are dispersed in their communities. This means that effective communication between councils, employers and the workforce, as well as efficient organisation and logistics, is paramount.
Overall, 79 per percent of providers which completed the survey had received contact from the councils where they are based. This is excellent progress, but in many areas there remains work to do in order to ensure that local authorities, the NHS and providers in their local area are in contact and working together.
Feedback from our survey suggests that, in some areas, communication between councils and providers is not as easy or efficient as it could be:
“We were missed off the initial email list as a private provider. It took me 6 days to find a contact who was responsible for the roll out for domiciliary care vaccinations. When I returned the forms I had to chase it up as they then stated they didn’t receive my email although I attached delivery receipts to it and could see it had been delivered.”
“I had a phone call to send details over, but heard nothing… I sent them the details again, and a week later still nothing. At the beginning of the week I emailed the council and they were to let me know where we were at in the queue. Still nothing.”
“We received an email to send a spreadsheet of all staff eligible and their NHS numbers – we got it back to them within 24 hours – this was weeks ago and we have not heard anything since.”
Our findings clearly show that even in areas where councils are doing a really good job, a proportion of providers in the local area have still not heard anything from their council. This is extremely frustrating for careworkers and their employers, particularly as it is now nearly three weeks since the Standard Operating Procedure for roll-out of vaccinations to community-based careworkers was published.
UKHCA is working with colleagues in local government, central government and NHS England to ensure that providers can identify themselves as having workers who need vaccinating.
UKHCA is calling on all local authorities in England with responsibility for adult social care to:
- Contact all eligible providers of domiciliary care in their area without further delay;
- Publish contact details for their vaccination teams on their websites in a place which is easy for providers to find;
- Produce a national list of contacts for each authority in England which is available in the public domain.
We want to put on record our deep gratitude for the fantastic collaboration and hard work of many colleagues across the health and care system on the roll-out of the vaccination programme for homecare workers. We have received positive feedback from many members, a few examples of which are below:
“[Plymouth City Council] have been excellent, quick and efficient. We have been contacted and asked for carer details and preferred time slots were booked immediately”.
“Tower Hamlets have been a huge support, they have taken steps to ensure that the booking process is easy for providers and worked in ways which work best for us, taking on our feedback and views. We also have a GP WhatsApp group set up with commissioners so that we are made aware when there are last minute slots available which can be used…”
“Suffolk County Council have worked really well with us to give options on Hospitals. Cannot thank them enough. Very supportive throughout the process.”
Effective communication is key to the success of the vaccination programme and the faster we are able to move collectively, the safer it will be for everyone.
This blog was produced when the Homecare Association was known as UKHCA.
