TWENTY three care staff have quit companies contracted with Cheshire East Council in the last week because they hadn't been vaccinated against Covid-19.

And the council is gearing up for the April double jab deadline which could hit all its front-line care and health workers.

The so called "jab or job" target date, whereby both vaccinations were mandatory for care workers, passed on Thursday, November 11.

At the council's meeting of the adults and health committee Crewe Central councillor Anthony asked operational director of adult social care Jill Broomhall: "You said we're almost, as a country, at crisis point with the [lack of] domiciliary carers.

"How many carers did we lose last week? And what was the process if we did lose any? Was it an overnight thing – you haven't had your vaccination, you're gone."

Mrs Broomhall replied: "From a local authority perspective, we didn't lose any staff.

"From the care market that we commission and contract with, in total 23 members of staff exited the market and obviously it would be the individual employers who would sort that out, but people couldn't work after midnight on November 10."

She added: "From April, mandatory vaccination, it looks like, will now affect all of our front-line services be that social workers, domiciliary care stuff, all of health staff. But that will be from April and we'll need a lot of work to coordinate all of that."