The Guardian reports:
The government is under pressure to reveal how it responded to four key recommendations made three years ago after a major simulation exercise found the NHS would not cope in the face of a flu pandemic.
The recommendations are revealed in the June 2017 minutes of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group – Nervtag – which advises the government on pandemics.
They were made after Exercise Cygnus, a three-day simulation involving national, regional and local government bodies, conducted in October 2016. Little is known about the exercise – or the confidential recommendations that followed from it – other than it confirmed alarming gaps in the country’s preparedness.
Phillip Lee, the former Liberal Democrat MP who was a Conservative minister at the time of Cygnus, said the exercise had a very sobering impact on government. “We knew we were not prepared for a pandemic from the Cygnus report,” Lee said. “It was a mistake not to publish it at the time. If we were not going to act on the lessons, then what was the point of the exercise?”
…Lee said: “The question I would very much like to ask the health secretary, Matt Hancock, and Michael Gove, who has responsibility in the Cabinet Office, is when did they read the Cygnus report that has not been published and, having read that report, why did they conclude not to increase testing, PPE and ventilator capacity in January?”
He added: “There has been really good work by outstandingly brave doctors, nurses and care workers but the fact that we have this situation, that we have to panic and build Nightingale hospitals that I suspect will never be properly filled, all of these panic decisions were made in extremis instead of in a calm, authoritative way in advance. The responsibility for that rests with senior politicians and senior civil servants.”
You can read the full Guardian article here.
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9 Comments
Well said, Phillip Lee, there are increasing numbers of questions to put to the various Conservative-led governments in office over the past ten years about how ready (or not) we were going into this pandemic. Seeming failures not to have picked up on insights from the likes of Exercise Cygnus represent serious issues for attention, if we are to learn from mistakes in the past.
Presumably once Dr lee was no longer a Minister (or indeed a Tory) he made a point of raising these issues in the House of Commons ?
Might it have been more efficient in so many ways if our party had drawn the nation’s attention to the existence of this national safety tool and the apparent government failure to use its information?
Discosure/Publicity?
When in power?
Immediately afterwards?
When the disease was first made public?
When cases first occurred in the U K?
Whilst we all have sympathy for any who have suffered, including Boris, his priority must surely be that the matters referred to here are addressed. Perhaps his experiences of both the disease and NHS staff will make him enthusiastic.
The original guardian report is worth reading, and the irresponsible ostrich/sand attitude of HMG is revealed by:
‘A Department of Health spokesman said the UK was “one of the most prepared countries in the world for pandemics”. He added: “We have followed a science-led action plan to contain, delay, research and mitigate the outbreak and acted swiftly to save lives and support our NHS, including prioritising access to testing and PPE for the frontline.” ‘
When did our party know of Excercise Cygnus?
The BBC also had their Channel 4 programme on a pandemic scenario as well as the above. I suspect,being Tories, they did not want to know cos it would mean spending money on something they regarded as irrelevant therefore they did not put an ‘insurance policy’ (plans for such a problem) in place. They were far more concerned with Brexit. Along with Climate change our next big double wammie comes next year for Brexit negotiations are still going on. This pandemic is a good excuse to hide our next problem.
@ Steve Trevethan ” When did our party know of Exercise Cygnus?”
They should have known about the pandemic system and preparedness when they
voted for the Lansley Health and Social Care Act back in 2012 when they were in Coalition. Pandemic procedures (including PPE matters and exercise procedures are set out in the Act. You can look it up the PDF booklet by cutting and pasting the link below :
Health and Social Care Influenza Pandemic Preparedness …assets.publishing.service.gov.uk › attachment_data › file
PDF
The responsibility during 2012/13 for ensuring that pandemic preparedness and response plans are drawn up and tested at the appropriate sub- national levels rests with the Clustered Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) and Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs).
Many thanks indeed to David Raw!!!
What will be very interesting will be seeing what Exercise Cygnus missed, I suspect it is alot…
I suspect assumptions were made about the supply of PPE from abroad, along with many other things that are currently proving problematic in the here and now…