Minister warns of swine flu panic
Updated on 26 July 2009
Public panic over swine flu could put unnecessary pressure on the NHS, Health Secretary Andy Burnham warned today.
He told the Observer that people should be reassured that the Government's response was well planned.
He said: "It is very important for everybody to keep a sense of perspective. It has been a mild virus in the vast majority of cases, with relatively mild symptoms from which people recover fully fairly quickly.
"If people are made unnecessarily anxious, it makes the lives of NHS professionals, who are already under enormous pressure, far more difficult as people become unduly worried."
"People should be assured that we have been planning our response to a pandemic for a long time."
He also said swine flu victims were getting Tamiflu, "quickly and conveniently" using the new National Pandemic Flu Service website and phone line.
Over 58,000 assessments were made by service on Thursday - its first day of operation - 89 per cent of which were completed on the internet, and 5,584 courses of the anti-viral drugs were collected, the Department of Health said.
However, a parliamentary committee is expected to criticise the Government for being slow to set up a swine flu helpline, it was reported today.
The Sunday Telegraph said the House of Lords science and technology select committee would say that ministers failed to follow their own timetable for informing and advising the public in the event of a pandemic. The report is expected to be published on Tuesday.
Mr Burnham's comments came following claims by experts from the University of Cambridge, the Intensive Care Society and St George's Healthcare NHS Trust in London that English hospitals might be unable to cope with the amount of people, especially children, affected by the pandemic.
Across the whole of England, demand for beds could be 60 per cent above the number available. The Government insisted that it can cancel non-emergency operations to increase the number of beds available but the experts said even this would not meet demand.
New adverts for the flu hotline service were launched yesterday as part of a £2.4 million campaign to publicise it. The print adverts detail the symptoms of swine flu, including a fever or a high temperature over 38C or 100.4F.
The adverts reminds patients that they should contact their doctor, rather than use the National Pandemic Flu Service, if they have a serious underlying illness; if they are pregnant; if they have a sick child under one year old; if their condition, or that of their child's, suddenly gets much worse; or if their condition is still getting worse after seven days (five days for a child).
The number for the National Pandemic Flu Service for England is 0800 1513 100 and the website address www.direct.gov.uk/pandemicflu
