Covid: 15 England areas where the most social care workers are unvaccinated as government u-turns on mandatory jabs

The Government has backtracked on its decision to require NHS staff and social care workers to be fully vaccinated against Covid.

The u-turn means 70,0000 non-fully vaccinated carers looking after sick or disabled people in their own homes will no longer lose their jobs in April. Parts of England were set to lose up to half of their workers.

But what is the Covid vaccine uptake across at-home carers in England, and which areas have the lowest uptake of the jab?

Out of the 406,365 workers employed by domiciliary care providers in the private sector , only 336,942 had received two doses of the Covid vaccine as of 30 January according to NHS England –  82.9% of all staff.

In total  358,921 (88.3%) have received just one jab so far. Uptake of the Covid booster jab is a lot lower, with just 158,688 (39.1%) having received a third dose.

There is no data on domiciliary care workers employed directly by councils, but the majority of all carers in England work in the independent sector.

In November 2021, it became mandatory for staff in care homes to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, unless exempt, which required two doses of the vaccine.

Out of 460,316 staff in older adult care homes, 437,681 people (95.1%) had received both Covid jabs as of 30 January 2022.

In private sector younger adult care homes, out of the 85,227 staff, 79,994 (93.9%) are double jabbed.

However, anyone employed by a council in a younger adult care home will be missing from this data.

But which areas of England have the lowest uptake of both doses of the Covid jab among at-home care workers?

These are the 15 council areas with the lowest uptake.