# 689
This story is from Scotland, but you could easily change the location to almost anywhere in the world. Far too little has been done to prepare for a pandemic, and PPE's (Personal Protective Equipment) rank very high on the list of items that will be most needed.
This report from the Sunday Herald.
Doctors reveal shortage of basic supplies to deal with flu outbreak
By Judith Duffy, Health Correspondent
GPs urge Holyrood politicians to stockpile equipment needed in frontline fight
DOCTORS HAVE warned they are short of supplies of essential protective equipment, such as face masks and gloves, needed in the event of a flu pandemic.
The most recent guidance issued by the Scottish Executive on dealing with a major influenza outbreak states face masks, aprons and gloves should be used by health workers to prevent the spread of infection.
But GPs say they currently have few supplies of this basic equipment and the Executive has admitted that it only has a "small" stockpile of masks for NHS staff.
In a motion to be put forward at an annual meeting of Scottish local medical committees next week, Dr Mary O'Brien, a GP in Dundee, will urge the Scottish Executive to secure a stockpile of personal protective equipment that would be available to doctors' practices.
She pointed out that GPs will be on the frontline of dealing with cases of flu in the event of a pandemic and that protective equipment would be vital to protect both healthcare workers and limit the spread of the illness among patients.
"Gloves, aprons and face masks are really important in preventing the spread of infection and we are going to be needing these things if we are within three feet of a patient," she said.
"We are going to need a lot of this stuff and at the moment we certainly don't have it.
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O'Brien acknowledged that there had been much planning and discussion in the past year on how to deal with pandemic flu in the UK, but cautioned that the outbreak could "happen at any time".
"If it happens somewhere in the world, it is most likely to happen in southeast Asia and take two to four weeks to hit the UK," she said. "Then it would only take a couple of weeks to become widespread across the UK.
"It has been 39 years now since the last pandemic - that is the longest recorded time between pandemics so we are potentially running out of time."
