Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent estimate he has made of the number of social care staff who are unvaccinated against covid-19.

As of 23 January 2022, 23,662 or 4.3% of staff in all adult care homes and 49,924 or 12.3% of staff in independent Care Quality Commissioned-registered domiciliary care providers are not yet reported as being vaccinated with their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

However, a proportion of these staff will be medically exempt from vaccination or may not currently be deployed for reasons such as maternity leave. Other members of social care staff may have also received their vaccination but have not yet informed their employer.