Almost 10 per cent of Harrogate District Hospital staff have not been fully vaccinated against Covid-19

That figure represents under 10 per cent of the 3,598 frontline staff at the hospital and was revealed by Dr Jacqueline Andrews, executive medical director at the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust.

She said the trust was urging all remaining staff to get doubled jabbed and that managers were speaking with those workers about their concerns.

Dr Andrews said: “It is vitally important that we all continue to do everything we can to minimise the risk of Covid-19 transmission in hospital and in the community.

“We have encouraged and supported all our staff to be fully vaccinated against Covid to keep themselves, their families, fellow colleagues and patients safe and improve our organisational resilience over what is likely to be a challenging winter.”

Government plans are already in place to make it a legal requirement for all care home workers to be fully vaccinated, while the same rules for frontline NHS staff are currently being considered in a consultation.

Across North Yorkshire, around 430 care home workers are not fully vaccinated and health officials have insisted they are making progress on reducing this number.

The date from which it will become a legal requirement for all care home staff in England to be double jabbed, unless medically exempt, is November 11.

The move has sparked concerns that making the jabs mandatory could lead to thousands of job losses which would only worsen the current staffing shortages in both sectors.

And there are now new warnings that employers could face legal action if they sack staff because they have not been fully vaccinated.

Ben Kirkham, regional organiser for the GMB union, said mandatory vaccines could open the door to claims of unfair dismissal if employers sack staff without offering them redeployment into roles where vaccines are not required.