In the latest NHS letter on the topic, the Government has accepted the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
The JCVI recommended the Government not to offer the COVID-19 vaccine to frontline health and social care workers and those in similar jobs, as it said the indirect benefits of vaccination (i.e. vaccinating an individual in order to reduce the risk of severe disease in other people) are less evident now compared with previous years.
However, the Government has decided that frontline health and social care workers, and staff working in care homes for older adults will continue to be offered COVID-19 vaccinations in the autumn 2024 programme in England.
They suggest that employers refer their staff to the National Booking Service, where staff can self-declare their eligibility.
Our stance has always been that members of dental teams are frontline health workers.
In addition to that, some members of the team may fall into the other categories to be offered COVID-19 inoculations:
- Adults aged 65 years and over
- Persons aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group as defined in tables 3 and 4 of the COVID 19 chapter of the Green Book
- Women who are pregnant regardless of their stage of pregnancy. This is not mentioned in the NHS letter, but is in the JCVI recommendations and may well include members of the dental team.