major incident planning:

The experience of planning for the eclipse has taught the West Country's NHS organisations that their previous major incident plans had flaws.

For example, they usually assume that services such as water, electricity and phones will be working. Both the eclipse overload and the millennium computer bug cast doubts on this.

For the eclipse, the Royal Cornwall trust has trebled its stocks of supplies. It will use the experience to plan stocks for the millennium week.

Director of nursing, therapies and special projects Denise Samuels says the experience has been a valuable lesson in drawing up trust-wide plans. As much as possible was left to local initiative. 'We didn't go down the road of saying there will be no annual leave in August, because it's a special time for many families.' Individual departments were left to make their own decisions.

'My advice is to involve everybody from the very beginning.'

The planning never stops, she adds. 'Four weeks ago, I announced: 'I'm eclipsed-out - surely we've dealt with everything.' Then I thought: dogs! People are going to bring their pets, too. So we've drawn up a list of vets...'