We are acting for 127 care home workers who were dismissed from their jobs for failing to provide to their employers satisfactory evidence of clinical reasons for non-vaccination.

We are bringing claims of unfair dismissal and indirect discrimination against the care home employers  as well as Sajid Javid personally, Ian Trenholm personally, and the DHSC and CQC.

Sajid Javid (then secretary of state for health) and Ian Trenholm (CEO of the CQC) are parties to the claims as under section 111 of the Equality Act 2010 the allegation is that they introduced Guidance which had no legal effect but was followed by almost all care homes and resulted in all the claimants’ dismissals. The Guidance caused discrimination as religious and or other reasons related to protected characteristics were not allowed as clinical reasons.

We have an application to strike out the government’s defences to the claims which will be heard on 5 and 6 December 2022.

The basis for our application is that regulation 5 of the 2021 Regulations amended regulation 12 of the 2014 Regulations.

In order to satisfy the requirements of regulation 12, care home managers must abide by the Code of Practice on Infection Control, not the Guidance. There is no dispute that the requirements for evidence of vaccination are an infection control measure.

Had care home managers followed the Code of Practice, no care home workers would have been dismissed or been discriminated against as the only requirement of the Code of Practice is to make a note of vaccine status. The Right Hon Sajid Javid and Ian Trenholm are responsible for issuing Guidance which had no legal force but caused care home workers to be deprived of their livelihood and vocations as almost all care homes followed the guidance rather than the Code of Practice.

The problem for Sajid Javid in this claim is two fold:

  1. He is obliged by law to keep the Code of Practice under review. This he failed to do, instead issuing Guidance which had no legal effect.
  2. The legislators in the House of Lords complained that the Regulations were rushed. We will keep you posted as to the outcome.

We will keep you posted as to the outcome.