Frontline NHS England staff will have to be fully vaccinated against Covid, the government is expected to announce later.
A deadline will be set for next spring to give unvaccinated staff time to get both doses, Whitehall sources told the BBC.
Between 80,000 and 100,000 NHS workers in England were unvaccinated, said Chris Hopson, head of NHS Providers.
Thursday is the deadline for care home workers in England to get vaccinated.
The government’s decision follows a consultation which began in September and considered whether both the Covid and flu jabs should be compulsory for frontline NHS and care workers.
The BBC understands that the flu vaccine will not be made mandatory and there will be exemptions for the Covid vaccine requirement for medical reasons.
Each of the four UK nations makes its own decisions on the issue.
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have not made any proposals to make Covid jabs compulsory for NHS workers or care home staff.
Last month, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said he was leaning towards compulsory vaccination for NHS staff in England, saying it was the right thing to do to protect staff and patients.
He told the BBC that he did not want the NHS to lose any staff, but said the experience in the social care sector was that the numbers taking up the vaccine “absolutely surged” after it was made compulsory.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers which represents England’s NHS trusts, urged the government to think carefully about the tone of any announcement it made, saying unvaccinated staff should not be scapegoated or denigrated.
“We understand why people are vaccine-hesitant. We need to win the argument with them rather than beat them around the head,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He added that the possibility of losing staff – as social care providers are reportedly experiencing – was a “real problem” as the NHS runs on fine margins and already relies on staff to work extra shifts.
From Thursday, care homes will be required to refuse entry to workers who have not been fully vaccinated, unless they have a medical exemption or there is an emergency.
In the NHS, more than 92% of frontline staff have had their first dose and 89% are fully vaccinated – higher than the general working-age population, where about 81% have had both doses.
But NHS figures show vaccination rates vary hugely: among hospitals, Dorset County hospital has the highest at 94.6%, while the trust running Bedford Hospital and Luton and Dunstable University Hospital has the lowest rate of fully vaccinated staff, at 79.7%.
Some countries have already introduced compulsory vaccination – including France, which had to suspend 3,000 unvaccinated healthcare workers in September.
But the French government said most suspensions were only temporary, with staff ultimately agreeing to get the jab.
NHS Providers, which represents the trusts which employ frontline workers, has previously said that vaccine mandates could provide an impetus for more staff to get vaccinated.
Chief executive Chris Hopson told the BBC employers wanted a deadline no sooner than April 2022, to avoid the risk of losing staff when “we have a difficult winter coming up and the NHS is going to be absolutely at full stretch”.
More than 45.8 million people in the UK have had two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, meaning 79.7% of people aged over 12 are fully vaccinated, while 87.4% have had a first dose.
The number of daily confirmed cases of Covid-19 remains high but is falling, with 32,322 reported on Monday. Deaths continue to rise week-on-week, with 1,191 reported in the last seven days.
Source: BBC
