Disaster planning
Secret report claims health workers were under too much pressure to prepare for crisis
Too much pressure on staff and resources jeopardised Scotland’s emergency plan to cope with a pandemic, a secret report reveals.
A major planning exercise, codenamed Silver Swan and set up to assess the country’s readiness to deal with a major public health emergency, made a number of recommendations in 2015. However, a review of progress the following year, heard there were problems implementing the plan because staff were under too much pressure.
The report of the summit, led by now acting chief medical officer, Gregor Smith, said: “Given the pressures on services, people are working in crisis every day and senior managers need to recognise this.”
Politicians yesterday questioned why the plan did not address care homes, protective equipment or testing.
Silver Swan was a major training exercise held in 2015 to assess whether Scotland was ready to deal with a flu pandemic.
Participants included representatives from the Scottish Government, NHS boards, Health Protection Scotland (HPS), the Scottish Ambulance Service, NHS 24 and Police Scotland.
About 600 people took part in the fourday exercise. A one-day health and social care event for 313 delegates was held in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Glasgow.
There were 200 participants involved in an “excess deaths” exercise in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness.
Also, a joint event on excess deaths and health and social care in Orkney, Shetland and Western Isles involved 72 people, and an event in Perth had 76 participants.
The exercise resulted in a 27-page report published in April 2016, which made 17 recommendations.
A follow-up event to review progress was held on December 6, 2016. The conference at Scotland’s Police College involved 95 delegates. It was led by Dr Gregor Smith – then Scotland’s deputy chief medical officer and now acting chief medical officer.
Dr Smith was also involved in a UK-wide flu pandemic exercise in 2016 that included the NHS in Scotland. Exercise Cygnus looked at the preparedness of health systems in a pandemic.
A report published in 2017 said the UK was not prepared for a pandemic and forewarned of a crisis in care homes.
It concluded: “The UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capability, is currently not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide impact across all sector.”
The Scottish Government said last month it had “limited involvement” in Cygnus and there were no specific recommendations for Scotland’s NHS.