THE owner of a York chain of nurseries has called for staff to be treated as if they were healthcare workers and prioritised for Covid vaccination and given regular testing.

Vanessa Warn, who runs Little Green Rascals, which employs 240 staff at seven nurseries across York and looks after about 600 children each day, said parents were ‘hugely grateful’ that they were all staying open during this new lockdown.

But she said a small number of staff had said they would not be coming in to work - despite being young and healthy - after reading in the media how bad the coronavirus rates now were in York.

And while the vast majority of parents were continuing to send their children, a small number had decided to stop doing so for the time being, perhaps because they were concerned about the virus being passed on to vulnerable relatives.

She said Little Green Rascals, which has organic day nurseries at Tadcaster Road, Elvington, Flaxton, Bishopthorpe, Haxby, Minster Yard and Nether Poppleton, had a comprehensive operational plan in place to ensure the safety of staff and children during the pandemic.

However, she was supporting calls by the Pre-school Learning Alliance and the National Day Nurseries Association for staff to be given regular lateral flow tests and to be a priority for vaccination.

Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch said that early years providers had been on the frontline through the crisis, putting themselves and their loved ones at risk to do what the government had asked.

“Those working in the early years are understandably extremely anxious about the safety and wellbeing of themselves, their colleagues, their families and the children they care for, but have sadly been made to feel that their safety simply does not matter,” he said.

He said he had raised concerns with children and families minister Vicky Ford yesterday, and was told that zero-five year olds had the lowest rates of coronavirus of all age groups, were less susceptible to infection and were not a driving force in transmission.

Meanwhile, a series of other nurseries in York said yesterday that they were staying open - at least for the time being. A staff member at Walmgate Starchild Nursery said it was staying open at the moment, adding: “We are going to see how it goes.”

Other nurseries staying open included The York Montessori Nursery Fulford, Muddy Boots in Acomb and Poppleton, Happy Jays at Clifton Moor and Busy Bees at Rawcliffe.