THE Police Federation of England and Wales has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to \u2018do the right thing\u2019 and ensure police officers receive priority access to COVID vaccines.<\/p>\n
Whilst \u201cfrontline health and social care workers\u201d are second in the Government\u2019s published priority list for the vaccine roll-out, police officers do not feature at all on the advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation.<\/p>\n
National PFEW Chair John Apter hit out after the Government failed to announce a decision on where police officers sit in the order of things despite weeks of high-level lobbying over the issue by PFEW and the National Police Chiefs\u2019 Council (NPCC).<\/p>\n
Mr Apter has now written directly to NPCC Chair Martin Hewitt requesting that new and urgent representations are made directly to Government over the issue so rank and file officers are \u2018given the protection they deserve.\u2019<\/p>\n
Laura Heggie, Chair of Essex Police Federation, said: \u201cAs we have done throughout the Pandemic in Essex the officers continue to work and put themselves at risk in order to protect the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the infection rate throughout Essex being one of the highest in the country, officers are understandably anxious and we believe that priority should be given to officers once the Elderly, extremely vulnerable and NHS have received the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n
National Chair John said: \u201cIt\u2019s time for the Prime Minister to do the right thing for police officers in the thick of this pandemic. I am calling on him to back my colleagues in their time of need as more are absent from work after contracting the virus or having to self-isolate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve lobbied the NPCC who have raised this directly with Government. Despite positive responses no formal decision has been made, and we now need immediate Government action. That\u2019s why the Prime Minister must make a decision – does he support police officers being prioritised for the COVID vaccine or not?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is certainly not about jumping the queue in front of the most vulnerable members of society or those on the NHS frontline. It\u2019s about ensuring policing is resilient enough to cope with the demands of the pandemic and that my colleagues can continue to support the public during these exceptional times.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his letter, Mr Apter stressed PFEW\u2019s full support for the lobbying and wrote that he valued NPCC\u2019s help and understanding on the \u2018vitally important issue.\u2019<\/p>\n
However, he added: \u201cIf we expect police officers to continue to police in the way that we do then it\u2019s essential they are given the protection they deserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting hands on and working in close contact with members of the public is often unavoidable. This creates a risk, not only for our members and the public they are dealing with, but also for the officers\u2019 families.<\/p>\n
\u201cI formally request that the NPCC makes representations to ensure that police officers are prioritised as part of the COVID vaccine programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the Government, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation \u201cdoes not advise further prioritisation by occupation during the first phase of the [Vaccination] programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
It adds: \u201cOccupational prioritisation could form part of a second phase of the programme, which would include healthy individuals from 16 years of age up to 50 years of age, subject to consideration of the latest data on vaccine safety and effectiveness.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE Police Federation of England and Wales has called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to \u2018do the right thing\u2019 and ensure police officers receive priority access to COVID vaccines. Whilst\u2026 read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157911,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157890"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157972,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157890\/revisions\/157972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/essexfedfocus.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}