THE Health Protection Agency has won an emergency planning award for its innovative swine flu response centres.

The HPA, which has a site at Porton Down, established the response centres, with assistance from the NHS, throughout England during the containment phase of the H1N1 pandemic last year and has now been awarded the Cabinet Office Innovation in Resilience Award at the Emergency Planning Society Awards.

Dr Brian McCloskey, director of the HPA’s London region, collected the award.

He said: “We are delighted that the hard work by the HPA and NHS to set up fully functional, multi-agency flu response centres at a time when swine flu was gathering pace and causing major health challenges has been recognised by the judges.

“The nine regional flu response centres in England co-ordinated the public health management of swine flu prior to the National Pandemic Flu Service going live. The teams involved were tasked with setting up centres staffed by health professionals, including consultants, doctors, nurses and medical students, to provide guidance to health professionals working on the front line. At the height of the pandemic’s first wave, the flu response centres were receiving thousands of calls and providing the latest advice on swabbing, treatment and containment measures.

“All of this was achieved from scratch in a matter weeks during what proved to be a rapidly evolving and high profile incident. It is to the credit of the HPA and NHS teams involved that the capability of mounting a resilient multi-agency response to an emergency situation, in a very short time frame, was demonstrated so successfully.”