Ian Gordon, dental director at Riverdale Healthcare, has spoken to iNews regarding the mandate.

He explained, “A lot of nursing staff have really lost a lot of goodwill for the job,” said Ian Gordon, dental director at Riverdale Healthcare.

“They’ve been working under horrible conditions, in enhanced PPE for 20 months and they’re [thinking], ‘I can go and work in [supermarket] Lidl on their new, enhanced living wage and I won’t have to have a vaccine if I don’t want, and I won’t have to wear full masks and plastic gowns’.

“They will walk and when they walk, I don’t think we’ll easily get them back.”

Ian further discussed, “There is a workforce shortage, a serious workforce shortage in the NHS at the minute, largely driven by Brexit, and if we were to lose that number [seven per cent] from the workforce, it’s not as if there’s going to be dental nurses immediately to replace them, I think it would be fair to say there would be almost a commensurate loss of capacity for dentists to work because by and large dentists can’t work if they’re not supported.”

By April, when unvaccinated workers will be banned from working, Ian expects around three per cent of his staff to remain unvaccinated.

“There will be a hardcore. In a service as stretched as we are now, even a three per cent loss of capacity would have an impact [on patient access].

“I personally, and Riverdale as a company, are absolutely pro vaccination but it’s the mandation that’s causing the problem.”

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