Management issues surrounding the United Kingdom health services’ ability to deal effectively with major incidents involving bioterrorism

Abstract

Health service managers need to capitalize on the Government's current concern about the threat of a bioterrorist attack and ensure that their departments are sufficiently equipped, and that their personnel are adequately educated and trained, to deal with any such incident. Better guidance needs to be produced and distributed to front line healthcare workers.

Are nurses prepared to respond to a bioterrorist attack: a narrative synthesis

“…If an effective, coordinated response to a bioterrorist attack is to be made then emergency plans must be communicated to all those who would be expected to respond (World 2004) and nurses must be given the appropriate training to prepare them to respond. However, institutions must take care not to enforce a top‐down approach to bioterrorist response planning and address the concerns of the ‘coal‐face workers’ (Hayward 2003, p. 204). In particular, the informal carer role of many nurses is reported as not being incorporated into hospital bioterrorist response plans, leaving nurses compromised between their professional role and their informal carer role.…”

“…In seeking to address the preparedness of nurses, healthcare institutions in the USA were required to introduce education programmes for nurses and increase the level of bioterrorism awareness among staff (Jones 2002). Similarly in the UK, a programme of bioterrorism awareness in the National Health Service was developed (Hayward 2003). However, despite these advances in bioterrorism preparedness, little research has been undertaken to examine the preparedness of nurses to respond to such an event.…”

Nurses’ preparedness for infectious disease outbreaks: A literature review and narrative synthesis of qualitative evidence

“…Although uncertainty might be potentially beneficial to nurses' awareness of and alertness to an epidemic event To maximise the nursing input for the outbreak planning process, local and national government agencies might consider involving nurses with experience in managing infectious disease outbreak in upper-level policymaking positions to participate in decision-making and formulating action plans (Smith & Hewison, 2012). Moreover, the participation of experienced clinical nurses in strategy planning for epidemic management would be of assistance to ascertain if there would be an alternative perspective to the bottom-up approach for response planning so that issues concerning frontline responders could be articulated and ultimately accommodated (Hayward, 2003). Moreover, the participation of experienced clinical nurses in strategy planning for epidemic management would be of assistance to ascertain if there would be an alternative perspective to the bottom-up approach for response planning so that issues concerning frontline responders could be articulated and ultimately accommodated (Hayward, 2003).…”

“…With the involvement of experienced nurses in outbreak planning, the inputs and opinions of the nursing taskforce, which represents the largest professional group in the healthcare industry, could be ventured and might be considered in the process of policy making (Shih et al, 2007). Moreover, the participation of experienced clinical nurses in strategy planning for epidemic management would be of assistance to ascertain if there would be an alternative perspective to the bottom-up approach for response planning so that issues concerning frontline responders could be articulated and ultimately accommodated (Hayward, 2003).…”

Facing the possibility of bioterrorism

“…Many experts expressed the hope that, after years of neglect, by capitalizing on political concerns, fear of bioterrorism would allow the field of public health to come of age [4][5][6][7]. Health tracking systems designed to deal with terrorist attacks are expected to also be of use in monitoring emerging infectious diseases more broadly and for identifying the roots of chronic illnesses [4].…”