A covid vaccination centre in London (Jonathan Brady/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)An NHS doctor who told the health secretary to his face on a hospital that he wouldn’t have the COVID-19 vaccine has repeated his refusal to get jabbed.
Dr Steve James, a consultant in critical care at King’s College Hospital in London, claimed to Sajid Javid vaccines are reducing transmission only for about eight weeks for the Delta variant and “probably less” for Omicron.
He said the “science isn’t strong enough” to support mandatory vaccines for NHS workers.
The consultant anaesthetist, who has been treating coronavirus patients since the start of the pandemic, told Sky on Monday he was surprised to even be offered the jab and confirmed he had still not had the jab.
He spoke as the health secretary was considering dropping the requirement that NHS staff accept vaccines.
Dr James said: “I never thought I would need to be vaccinated. I always thought healthy people wouldn’t be offered the vaccine; it was going to go to vulnerable people.”
He added he did not want to be “coerced” into getting a vaccine and making them mandatory is “wrong”.
Speaking for himself, he said he believes he has “natural immunity” after contracting the virus earlier in the pandemic.
Front-line NHS workers in England must be fully vaccinated by 1 April, meaning they need a first dose by Thursday.
If they are not jabbed by April, they will be redeployed or dismissed.
The Royal College of Midwives warned the policy could have a “catastrophic impact” on maternity services while the Royal College of GPs and Royal College of Nursing called for the deadline to be delayed.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Simon Clarke told Sky News the current coronavirus situation “does open a space” to look again at mandatory vaccinations for NHS staff and social care workers.
