6.1 Pandemic Planning

6.1.1 Public health planning

In 2008, the Australian Health Protection Committee (AHPC) agreed that there was a need for a health workforce enhancement strategy. State and territory health departments considered in pandemic planning how surge capacity within the healthcare workforce would meet the anticipated increase in demand for health care during a severe pandemic. This included ensuring availability of health professionals with the appropriate levels of training.

The AHPC undertakes regular audits of the health sector capacity to respond to emergencies.²⁵ These include assessment of intensive care unit (ICU) beds and surge capacity. Hospital capacity to respond to a pandemic is also continually reviewed under state and territory response plans. In addition, some jurisdictions had commenced development of plans for the ethical prioritisation of life-saving services in health emergencies.

The AHMPPI identifies that some health services may need to be temporarily reorganised during a pandemic. This could include, for example, cancellation of elective surgery and temporary suspension of other non–life-saving services for a period. Plans also highlight that normal and serious health conditions will continue to need attention, even in a pandemic, and therefore some general practices would need to focus on maintaining routine health care. There may be a need to designate some general practices and hospitals as non-influenza services to ensure maintenance of life-saving services.

To optimise the availability of both public health and clinical services, a range of strategies are outlined in the AHMPPI to specifically manage or support influenza cases. These include the establishment of ‘flu clinics’ in the community or in existing hospitals, to be managed by individual jurisdictions, and may include nomination of some general practices as influenza practices. As planning for flu clinics was the responsibility of jurisdictions, they were planned differently in each state and territory. It was anticipated that these clinics would help to ensure that general practices and hospitals did not become overloaded, thus maintaining the provision of life-saving non-influenza health services. They would also provide rapid access to trained health professionals for anyone who was concerned that they may have pandemic influenza.

It was anticipated that the majority of people with pandemic influenza would be able to remain at home during their illness and would not require hospital care. State and territory health departments would provide specialist influenza in-patient healthcare services, which might include reorganising some hospital services and working with the private sector to manage hospital surge capacity needs. The AHPC would collaborate on sharing critical-care resources across the country.

Top of Page

6.1.2 Primary care planning

Planning is premised on supporting general practice to provide mainstream primary healthcare services and, where possible, to assist in meeting the additional burden of care needed for patients with pandemic-related illness. The draft primary care annex to the AHMPPI, Guidelines for the Management of Pandemic Influenza in Primary Care Settings, was the subject of ongoing discussions with the primary care sector when the 2009 pandemic emerged.

General practices have been encouraged through a variety of forums to prepare, in advance, for a pandemic with business continuity plans, protocols for infection control and good hygiene, and a range of other measures. General practices were encouraged also to consider, in advance, what their role might be during a pandemic. It was considered that some practices may elect not to receive cases of pandemic influenza, particularly if personal protective equipment (PPE) and antiviral medications were scarce. Other practices could work with local health departments to become influenza-specific practices. The Australian Government and many jurisdictions have actively and extensively engaged with general practices in these preparations.

To assist general practices to plan for a pandemic, a Pandemic Flu Kit was developed by the Royal Australasian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. The kit was developed to support the education and training of all practice staff, including information on government planning, business continuity, infection control, communication and clinical management. The kit had been distributed prior to the pandemic.

Top of Page
²⁵ The current audit details are available from www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/ohp-hlth-disaster-mngment-cap-audit-2008.