Exercises carried out to prepare for another potential pandemic have uncovered a litany of challenges that would hamper the response to a fresh virus outbreak, The MJ can reveal.
Participants reported ‘widespread and repeated uncertainty' about decision-making that would ‘undermine timely and effective action' during another pandemic.
‘Inconsistent guidance' and ‘resource challenges' have also been cited as hindering any response.
The issues have been highlighted in feedback from 17 Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) that have taken part in Exercise Solaris, a tabletop assignment designed to help prepare for the nationwide Exercise Pegasus, a major cross-government preparedness exercise due to begin in September.
Feedback will be used to identify areas for development and help design the scenario used in Exercise Pegasus in the autumn.
The large-scale exercise – billed as ‘one of the most comprehensive ever undertaken in the UK' – will simulate the initial stages of a pandemic.
It comes after the ongoing official Covid-19 Inquiry's initial findings said the role of local authorities ‘was not adequately considered' in previous exercises.
LRFs have stressed the need for clarity on which agencies take the lead in decision making and supply of personal protective equipment, improved sharing of data and recognition of workforce challenges.
In the past week, the inquiry has heard that the vulnerability of social care exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic remains.
Chief executive of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) during the pandemic, Cathie Williams, said that central government's focus on hospital discharges and avoiding a ‘health collapse' meant social care had been an ‘afterthought'.
Williams, who stepped down as ADASS chief executive in 2024 after a decade in the role, told the inquiry: ‘The ultimate impact of that was on morbidity and mortality, and to this day in a disproportionate incidence of long Covid in care workers.
‘Prior to the pandemic I think none of us had any idea of how difficult and disastrous a pandemic could be – now we do and its important while there's still a degree of freshness to look [back].'
Williams said the sector struggled to prepare for future emergencies while managing day-to-day crises.
Local Government Association chief executive Joanna Killian was also critical of national strategy when she appeared before the inquiry this week.
She said: ‘Our experience from the start of the pandemic was that continuing focus on the NHS shifted esteem away from social care, it led to poor decision-making about the allocation of resources. It was clear to us that decisions about discharge put some care homes at threat of harm.
‘In many ways we are where we were pre-2020. As a society, in Government, there is a still a fundamental lack of understanding. We've not made the progress I and others would have wished.'
