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Extract from

Royal Society Infectious Disease Inquiry Follow-Up review (pdf file)

Expert group

From Page 4

b. Decision making during outbreak


While many of the individual components within the contingency plans are in place, concern remains about some of the decision-making processes within Defra during an outbreak of an exotic infectious disease; in particular about testing the robustness of the criteria that would be used in the decision tree to determine whether to employ extended pre-emptive action and if so whether this should involve emergency vaccination or slaughter {7.2}.

We also remain concerned both about the effectiveness of arrangements for securing independent expert advice from outside Defra during an outbreak and about the mechanisms whereby this advice is then fed into decision making {3.9; 3.10}. We await the full report of Exercise Hornbeam to assess the expert advice requested and the impact of the decision making process in a large-scale fire drill.

From Page 7

Technical input to the decision making process

3.7 Although not reflected in the numbered recommendations, the IDL report expressed concern (paragraph 9.20) that early drafts of the contingency plan did not appear to be taking sufficient account of the need to involve at the strategic level the Defra Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA), and strongly recommended the creation of a high level technical advisory committee chaired by the Department’s CSA. The input of expert advice is also reflected in the EU FMD Directive (Article 78), which requires Member States to create a permanently operational balanced expert group to ensure preparedness against an outbreak.

3.8 The establishment of a FMD Expert Group has been included in the latest version of Defra’s Contingency Plan to bring it in line with the EU Directive. The Group has a clearly defined membership for ‘peacetime’ and an enhanced membership in the event of an outbreak. We note, however, that the core and enhanced membership of the Expert Group are currently made up of staff from Defra, the Veterinary Laboratories Agency and the Institute of Animal Health, with no independent members. While this meets the letter of the EU Directive (Article 78 (1)), it is not clear that it contains all the expertise that would be required during an outbreak.

3.9 The contingency plan recognises the role of the Science Advisory Council and its sub-groups during an outbreak, and provides for cross representation at official level to the expert group to challenge policy decisions.

3.10 One of the first actions of the SAC was to establish an epidemic diseases sub-group to review the science underpinning Defra’s FMD contingency plan, and this sub-group included co-opted members with expertise in veterinary and social science. The roles of the expert group and the SAC FMD group were rehearsed during exercise Hornbeam, a report on which is expected shortly. This sub-group has also reviewed the outcome of Exercise Hornbeam, and its views should input into the next review of the contingency plan and more generally to the FMD Expert Group.