The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is to revoke regulations making Covid vaccination a condition of deployment in health and social care settings on Tuesday 15 March.
A public consultation found 90 per cent of responses supported the removal of the legal requirement for health and social care staff to be double jabbed.
Mandatory vaccination for care home and auxiliary staff have been in force since 11 November.
“When the original decision was taken to introduce Covid-19 vaccination as a condition of deployment, Delta was the dominant variant,” DHSC said.
“This has since been replaced by Omicron which is less severe, with the percentage of those requiring emergency care or hospital admission approximately half that of the Delta variant,” it added.
The National Care Forum (NCF), which represents the not-for-profit sector, said the mandatory vaccination measure was the “wrong policy at the wrong time”.
Findings from a recent survey of NCF members revealed that the implementation of the policy has come at “very great cost - it has absorbed huge amounts of time and energy, been very costly financially and has had a very real human cost on all involved”.
Chief executive Vic Rayner added: “The NCF and its membership have been 100 per cent behind the drive for vaccination and booster take up throughout the pandemic and as a sector have worked hard to achieve the highest possible vaccine uptake amongst staff and the people we support.
“The government consulted twice on its plans to introduce the policy. Both times, it was clear that respondents did not support this policy.”
