The demise of vaccine mandate plan for NHS staff was inevitable

Critical care consultant Dr Steve James challenges Sajid Javid about the edict during the health secretary’s visit to King’s College hospital in London. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The decision to force NHS staff in England to get vaccinated against Covid-19 was always going to generate controversy, but it was also understandable. Sajid Javid’s professed motivation – to protect patients from unjabbed frontline personnel – was sincere, especially given the many thousands of people who have died after becoming infected while in hospital. The health secretary argued his case publicly and passionately, seeking to convert the many sceptics.

But it was also a policy that was flawed from the start and which then encountered many obstacles along the way before meeting an increasingly inevitable demise. It will be little mourned.