#877
Last year Australia conducted extensive drills on how they would respond to a pandemic. The report on that exercise, called Cumpston 06, are now available online in PDF format here. A web based HTML version is promised soon.
The report makes 12 recommendations in this 80 page document:
- Usual decision-making structures and consultative processes need to be streamlined to ensure timely responses in an emergency.
- National pandemic plans (the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, the National Action Plan and other relevant plans) need updating to provide for a more flexile layering of preparedness and response measures according to the severity of the pandemic and available response capacity.
- Health electronic communications systems, including the Health Alert Network and the Department of Health and Ageing Webster, need to be further developed and exercised.
- There is an urgent need for improved whole-of-government and cross-jurisdictional communications mechanisms to ensure consistent and coordinated delivery of public messages.
- The concept and operation of public health policies, such as social distancing, need to be explained to the public with public communication messages and strategies prepared ahead of time.
- A nationally agreed framework for pandemic influenza surveillance should form an annex to the Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza, and should be underpinned by operational plans and improved information and communications technology.
- Individual jurisdictions should ensure operational lessons learned from exercise activities are shared with all state and territory health departments and other relevant groups.
- Further clarificaton of Commonwealth quarantine and state and territory public health and health emergency legislation is needed to ensure smooth operational interaction. This will include detailed operational procedures for triggering and applying the relevant
powers.
- The Australian Health Management Plan for Pandemic Influenza needs further updating and fleshing out in some policy areas to ensure nationally consistent and streamlined approaches, including to border quarantine, social distancing, access to antivirals and vaccines and influenza assessment entrees.
- General practitioners, community pharmacies and other primary care providers need to be better integrated into detailed plans at the national and jurisdictional level.
- Procedures for health incident rooms and operations entrees need to be reviewed to ensure seamless support for decision making and experience of command, control and coordination in emergencies are built in.
- The exercise did not test Australia's whole-of-government capacity to respond over an extended period. Further work is needed to ensure responses can be sustained over a prolonged period through planning for workforce training and surge capacity, scenario-based contingency planning and a continuing program of pandemic preparedness exercises.
