Exercise Cygnus

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they took following Exercise Cygnus to prepare the United Kingdom for responding to a major pandemic.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Exercise Cygnus addressed the greatest risk in the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies: a flu pandemic. All the recommendations from Exercise Cygnus were accepted and taken on board. Many of these proved invaluable for informing the response to Covid, including plans for legislation that would assist in response measures, for bringing back retired clinical staff, for flexing systems beyond normal capacity and for establishing a group of expert advisers on moral, ethical and spiritual issues.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, if the Minister is so confident that the lessons from Exercise Cygnus informed the UK’s preparedness, why was the care sector so neglected? To deal with the surge of NHS patients expected in the event of a pandemic, the exercise identified that extra capacity would be required in care homes. Why was that not heeded and why, as Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, put it, was PPE redirected away from care homes and the NHS given a clear instruction in March to send people to care homes despite no testing for infection being available?