HOSPITAL chiefs have developed an action plan if the swine flu pandemic returns after learning lessons from the outbreak.

Bosses spent £318,876 on managing the pandemic in the year up to April. The largest proportion of that (£181,000) was spent on ventilators in clinical care.

The Pandemic Operational Planning Team (POPT) which managed the pandemic in Worcestershire, needs to be “smaller and more task-orientated”, a meeting of the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust was told.

Poor vaccination rates among staff and problems with supply were also identified as problems, as bosses discussed a report by emergency planning officer Lorraine Wilde.

POPT will lok at the uptake of the vaccine among hospital staff, with more vaccinations during the summer.

Ms Wilde She also wrote in her report that “potentially infectious patients were not always being directed to isolation facilities”, which is how the hospital staff help contain the spread of the virus.

One of the main issues identified in the report was the need to review the training of staff to help them manage the pandemic. POPT now has to identify training needs of staff, which should be met between September and October.

A new strain of flu was discovered in Mexico last March, with people with lung, heart, kidney, liver or neurological disease being most at risk. Other at risk groups were asthmatics, pregnant women, people aged 65 and older and young children under five.

Phil Milligan, the trust’s chief operating officer, said the West Midlands was the worst affected area in the country, although most cases were in the Birmingham area.

A total of 24 in-patients were tested for the virus in Worcestershire in March, none proving positive.

Your Worcester News was the only member of the media to attend the meeting.