Andy Burnham seeks swine flu critical care assurance

National director for NHS flu resilience Ian Dalton will work with strategic health authorities to produce a new plan by the end of August.

Mr Dalton said: “The secretary of state and I had a discussion about critical care and he has asked me to work with the 10 SHAs to produce a critical care plan.

“The plan will draw on the work which we know is going on, where clinicians and managers are refining their plans.”

Plans were in place for expanding critical care capacity and were being adapted for swine flu, he said.

The Department of Health recently published figures showing the number of critical care beds available at each hospital trust in January.

Expanding those would require additional space, beds and staff. Some regions have looked at whether critical care doctors could be moved from less affected areas.

Mr Dalton said: “It is a work in progress. The conversations are going on locally, but I would like to reassure people that this builds on a lot of planning going back a long time.

“The plan will set out in greater detail exactly what measures would be taken and what the consequences would be elsewhere.”

Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson said GP consultation figures last week and data from the national pandemic flu service appeared to show the spread of swine flu was slowing.