22 replies to this topic

[Simon]

With swine flu spreading quickly now I wondered whether anyone has been directly affected. I know some large companies are asking their suppliers what contingency plans they have in place to maintain supply in the event of high staff absences. Have you considered contingency planning for swine flu - do you have one in place already?

Regards,
Simon

[tsmith7858]

Interesting question!

I don't think we have looked at it from a contigency plan nor have any of our customer asked for it. We have plans on disaster recovery but wide spread illness is not included.

Not sure it was ever considered.

[FSSM]

We do not have documented any plan, when we suffered this H1N1 expansion in Mexico, we just took care of reducing visits from suppliers or other services to the plant, check health status of workers, and normal handwashing routine and equipment cleanliness. Avoiding cross-contamination with personal working equipment, etc. We had no infected people at our facilities. At some places, it is a normal procedure to check health status of people at production area. But, having all your production personnel infected, that would be a very critical situation, not just for shutting off your production lines, but for any concern about contaminated product, if the danger (pathogen) can be transmitted by food. Training new people involved with food security is a must before they can start working, so I think there is no much room to move in this scenario.



Suggestions?

Regards,

FSSM

[Abdul Qudoos]

With swine flu spreading quickly now I wondered whether anyone has been directly affected. I know some large companies are asking their suppliers what contingency plans they have in place to maintain supply in the event of high staff absences. Have you considered contingency planning for swine flu - do you have one in place already?

Regards,
Simon

Excellent topic, everyone need to think!

So far i haven't heard about contingency plans, but i have taken awareness program of H1N1 with 'Personal Hygiene' training.

[Simon]

I think maybe we could address with ERICPD approach borrowed from the Health & Safety Body of Knowledge.

ERICPD – The Hierarchy of Hazard Control Measures

Obviously we need to avoid or at least minimise swine flu in the workplace and here are a few ideas that may help:

- Provide employees with general information on swine flu e.g. what it is, how to avoid, detect and what to do if you suspect you have come into contact with someone who has it or you think you have it yourself
- Reiterate procedures for hygiene, hand washing, cleaning procedures, reporting illness, return to work, contamination prevention etc.
- Consider increasing availability of hand sanitizers like they have in hospitals
- If you do not pay sick leave or it is reduced you should consider paying in full where an employee has a confirmed case of swine flu from the doctor
- Cancel or reduce to the minimum visits to your factory and also visits by your employees to other places
- Masks?
- Create more physical space between workers?
- Physical barriers?

Like any other flu type illness the cases are normally staggered over time and the likelihood is it will not be a mass outbreak. However, we would need to consider if we did lose a large proportion of our employees and production capacity – do we have an alternative? That’s the scary bit and although unlikely we should have contingency plans in place not just for this but for other sorts of devastating crisis.

The business link website below has some good guidance on swine flu and links to other documents and resources and also general crisis management and business continuity planning.

Swine Flu information and general crisis management and business continuity planning.

Here is another one:
Swine flu: the definitive guide for employers

With these things it's a difficult balance between providing adequate information and guidance to employees and the fear of frightening them and not saying anything at all. Personally I think we should provide the information and guidance in a clear way.

Just a few of my thoughts.

Regards,
Simon

[YongYM]

Hello:

Any one checking the body temperatures of the workers as well as those who enter the plant??

[MRios]

Lots of airports have included checking body temperature of passengers upon arrival.
HOwever, I think this could be quite a hassle especially in large plants.
The usual GMP training should take care of the problem, but at our company we´re also asking everyone to be on the lookout for H1N1 symptoms in any family memberts. ´
People involved in cleaning areas like bathrooms and cafeterias are wearing masks and gloves. We´ve placed alcohol gel in many different areas where we have clients.
So far, there´s only been one case concerning a family member of one of the employees in one of the 5 companies. Everything turned out alright.
As for cleaning process lines, ammonium or chlorine should do the trick. From what I hear, the virus is not especially resistant and regular cleaning takes care of it. Other than that, if some kind of accident / incident should occur, follow your bodily fluids procedure.

[AS NUR]

IMO.. we have to keep healthy live and Pharmacyst have to make medecine as soon as possible, so we can help people immediately...

[kaz]

the attachement is one I found yesterday after several of our customer started asking for plans

Attached Files

•  060516flubcpchecklist.pdf   128.36KB   89 downloads

[Ladygrey]

We haven't been directly affected yet but it seems to be getting closer at local schools, etc. We have launched our Swine Flu plan this week as part of our Business Contingency Plan. It basically deals with the sypmtoms, how it is transmitted, at risk groups, prevention (including the reduction of face-to-face meetings and travel, etc), what we expect from our employees, what they can expect from us, etc.

Other things that you ought to consider in preparation are:

critical suppliers of raw materials, equipment & services - are they sole suppliers? do you have alternatives already approved? Do your suppliers have a flu contingency plan in place?
Do you have a succession plan in place? - Identify key roles/staff & tasks in your organisation that afe essential to maintain business activity, which of these would you be able to cover if say 50% of your work force contracted swine flucover for?
What is the trigger for your plan implementation? - how many contract flu before you implement your plan?

Hope this helps

P S the flu checklist attached by Kaz is an excellent tool - I used it

[cazyncymru]

With swine flu spreading quickly now I wondered whether anyone has been directly affected. I know some large companies are asking their suppliers what contingency plans they have in place to maintain supply in the event of high staff absences. Have you considered contingency planning for swine flu - do you have one in place already?

Regards,
Simon

We have an extensive plan which is an extension of our crisis management. this has been put into operation. It includes working out who will take on business decisions if our directors are struck down, how we will supply our customers, identifying key staff etc etc. we have 3 co-ordinators, and deputies.

next step is to ask our suppliers for their plans.

[itay.sh]

Swine flu is just one issue of continuity plan. As an exporter, one of the biggest disasters posibble (and even, sometimes, probable) is a port strike. This is a force major that stops all exports.

We also had a little war here half a year ago- our main production site suffered minor damages but our minor production site was under constant sirens alerts and many of the workers stayed at home.

The swine flu, by itself, doesn't seems to be big issue. Hopefully. But one of our customers already asked for continuity plan. I found this document to be little helpful:

http://www.axa.co.uk...yGuideT1404.pdf

[GMO]

We have been directly affected. A couple of staff off with it already. The response from my company was to put in place pages of procedures which no-one has time to read!!!!

I think the biggest risk is staff being off ill. We have a plan B and C at the moment so it's not too bad for us if we went under. It's worth considering though if you have single suppliers for some goods, what would they do? Ideally, if you can have a second supplier that would help but does your supplier have another plant to turn to?

[Simon]

I heard somewhere that in the UK up to 75% of people could get it over the next 12 months. Even if this turns out to be true the cases will be well staggered; so if you have a factory of 100 people you may have a handful off work every week with swine flu for the next twelve months. It’s disruptive but not enough to cause a company to cease to exist. Even if all employees were off at the same time it only lasts a week or so. Again very disruptive but not unrecoverable. If swine flu has prompted some businesses to consider contingency planning for any foreseeable event then maybe the hype has been worth it.

Good discussion congratulations to the thread starter.

Regards,
Simon

[Tony-C]

Contingency plans will also need to consider possible factory closure. Which can be a little bit of a headache !

Multi-site companies can still struggle with capacity in this scenario.

Regards,

Tony

[Simon]

I saw a silly question the other day.

At what % of employee loss will you be unable to supply?

Well if we lose 10% we will be 10% slower and if we lose 50% then we will be 50% slower and if we lose 99% then you will get your product in 2012.

What a silly question.

Simon

[GMO]

I have been asked that exact question. It's not as daft a question as it seems. At approx 50% loss of staff, I think we were nearer 10-20% production ability but at 10% loss of staff, we could operate at 100%. It's all to do with skills and cover but it greatly depends on who goes off. If all of our operators who are trained on one machine are part of a 30% absence level, we'd be stopped!

[sirilucky]

I just want you all to know about a point with regards to swine flu: A governor in India has written to Indian president:
Please Read this and lets know the facts:

My dear President,

I agree with you that swine flu awareness is needed, but there is no need to be panicky and join the publicity propaganda carried out by media and others which acts as a vehicle to spread misconception than to spread scientific information.

These are few facts about swine flu when discussed with the leading epidemiologists.

1) Swine flu, that is H1N1 flu is not new, first detected in 1987
2) Infective stage of flue is 5 days, 1 day before and 4 days after onset of symptoms
3) The best way to prevent it spreading is asking patient having symptoms of flu like fever cough and running nose to take rest at home for 4 days so he does not transmit it
4) Masks are of limited value if any, in this disease, it can spread through droplets on your skin, through contact etc, and I have seen that the masks in Pune are worn as fashion statement, while walking on road today morning I saw people wearing masks coming out for a morning walk with their dogs!, many wearing masks around their necks, and so on, infect these masks shall act as the vehicles to carry the virus, instead, avoiding crowded places or cinema halls or malls where air conditioners are on, is advisable, because you get recalculated air, where the virus density multiplies
5)Death after H1N1 flu is not common, infect infections like measles is taking toll of thousands more every year, and we are oblivious of the facts. Swine flu is being blown out of proportion by media trying to create hysteria among lay people.
6) Fever accompanied by respiratory distress, should be immediately notified which is likely to be a complication of H1N1 flu
7)The mortality is less than .01 percent of those affected, that means may be one in 10,000 affected is likely to suffer the life loss.
8) If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic.
We need to take care of children and elderly who have less immunity and do not let them go to crowded places that are all.

WE MUST START THIS CAMPAIGN OF NOT TO BE AFRAID OF THIS FLU AND LET YOUR DAILY WORK CONTINUE AS NORMAL, NO MASKS FOR ORDINARY CITIZENS, HEALTH CARE WORKERS OR SPECIFIC EXPOSED TO LOT OF CROWDED ENVIRONMENTS MAY BE BENEFITED, NOT PROVEN.

I am amazed to hear that people are selling masks of RS 20 each which are available to less than Rupee 1 in the market.
See who is getting benefited?

Please spread the scientific info, do not join the band wagon and stick to science, that should be the order of the day.

Deepak Purohit
District governor
3131

[Abdul Qudoos]

Excellent topic, everyone need to think!

So far i haven't heard about contingency plans, but i have taken awareness program of H1N1 with 'Personal Hygiene' training.

Here is the presentation for H1N1 awareness:
H1 N1 Swine Flu Awareness

If required the copy, please don't hesitate to reply/ask me anytime,

[Simon]

Here is the presentation for H1N1 awareness:
H1 N1 Swine Flu Awareness

If required the copy, please don't hesitate to reply/ask me anytime,

Thanks Abdul. It appears in the UK the number of cases is reducing, although the children have all just returned to school following the long summer holidays.

[Jean]

H1N1 flu scare has reduced and by now the people are aware of the measures and step to be taken.

[Charles.C]

Dear All,

Actually, at least in UK, there seems to be an increase in awareness / operational activities.

I did a little searching from kaz's previous useful attachment. Initially, my impression was that the issue was now dormant (I noticed the frequent instructions to proceed as per "Government Advice" in the action plan which is often the kiss of d***h IMEX. Additionally the link lead to a website with the disturbing "not in use" type statement but, to my surprise, the suggested new link led to a seemingly busy website where I saw this (Sept 10) -

Following a review of NHS critical care capacity and plans to increase this capacity if necessary during a pandemic, a critical care strategy has been published today. The document sets out how the NHS will double ventilated critical care capacity during the peak of a potential second wave of the swine flu virus. It outlines a series of whole system measures that can be put in place, including measures to minimise demand for critical care.

To support the NHS with this work, a new Critical Care Clinical Group made up of a number of independent experts in delivering critical care has been formed. The group will be chaired by Dr Judith Hulf, President of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and will provide a dedicated, expert resource for the NHS for the duration of the swine flu pandemic.

http://www.dh.gov.uk...neflu/DH_104989

I guess this in line with the forthcoming "cold season" in UK.

The latest general policy document (pdf dwl) is here -
http://www.dh.gov.uk...dance/DH_104977 and contains an impressive 120 codicils with this opening paragraph (inc. xref) -

The NHS is one of the best-prepared health systems in the world for an influenza pandemic. This document describes the approach to managing critical care in a H1N1 flu pandemic

The document did seem a bit low on specifics though. Was also somewhat mystified by this footnote -

The NPFS (National Pandemic Flu Service) is currently not operational in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but it can be switched on if needed.

The latest bulletin did note that currently cases decreasing but I didn't notice any useful graphical data (maybe there somewhere). Would hv been interested to see a comparison to frequency rates for cases of "normal" flu but maybe the data is non-existent.
(added - there is some interesting graphical data and global comments here - http://www.hpa.org.u...p=1231252394302 which seems to imply that "overall" flu-type reported data for UK at this time is not unusual, but doesn't appear to differentiate any varieties (I guess this is not so easy)

@sirilucky, I suspect some of the items in yr quoted letter (containing no cross-references at all!) are highly debatable (to put it politely), eg -

Swine flu, that is H1N1 flu is not new, first detected in 1987

True, but not true, ie this is a new strain - http://en.wikipedia....Swine_influenza

If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic.

I am sure that several countries would take considerable exception to those opinions.
http://en.wikipedia....ratory_syndrome

The mortality is less than .01 percent of those affected, that means may be one in 10,000 affected is likely to suffer the life loss.

Maybe 10x more. The mortality rate is believed comparable to "seasonal" flu (~0.1%) but with different vulnerabilities http://abcnews.go.co...tory?id=8590433 (Sept 16)
(I'm curious myself regarding current statistics for Mexico where initial data suggested much higher losses)

@Simon,

Well if we lose 10% we will be 10% slower

Not if the 10% are all engineers

Rgds / Charles.C

[Crimson12]

We have an extensive plan which is an extension of our crisis management. this has been put into operation. It includes working out who will take on business decisions if our directors are struck down, how we will supply our customers, identifying key staff etc etc. we have 3 co-ordinators, and deputies.


Regards

Crimson

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