CARE home workers may need to have a coronavirus jab if they want to carry on working.

A five-week consultation is being launched on whether Covid vaccination should be a condition of work for people who are deployed in homes with older residents, to protect them from the virus.

The Government said experts on the social care working group of SAGE advise that 80 per cent of staff and 90 per cent of residents needed to be vaccinated to provide a minimum level of protection against outbreaks of Covid-19, but only 53 per cent of older adult homes in England were currently meeting this threshold.

Currently the staff vaccination rate was below 80 per cent in 89 local authority areas - more than half - and all 32 London boroughs.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said:“Making vaccines a condition of deployment is something many care homes have called for, to help them provide greater protection for staff and residents in older people’s care homes and so save lives.

“The vaccine is already preventing deaths and is our route out of this pandemic. We have a duty of care to those most vulnerable to Covid-19, so it is right we consider all options to keep people safe.”

Staff who can provide evidence of a medical exemption from Covid-19 vaccination would not be affected by the change.

Dr Pete Calveley, the chief executive of Barchester Healthcare, which has several care homes in the York area, said the firm believed the vaccination programme had transformed the outlook for the vulnerable residents in older people care homes, a significant proportion of whom would not acquire full immunity despite being vaccinated.

“We have not lightly introduced our vaccine policy, but we take the view that providing safe care for those we care for is our paramount obligation," he said.