White House - National Strategy Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response plans
Category Business Continuity Management BCM - White House - Pandemic - BCM Planning - Bird Flu
Bush stresses the importance of planning and BCM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On May 3, 2006, The Bush Administration Announced the Implementation Plan For The National Strategy For Pandemic Influenza.
The President's Homeland Security Advisor, Frances Townsend, discussed the Avian and Pandemic Influenza threat and outlined the Federal Government's preparedness and response steps. The Plan translates the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza into more than 300 actions for Federal departments and agencies and sets clear expectations for State and local governments and other non-Federal entities. It also provides guidance for all Federal departments and agencies on the development of their own plans.
President Bush setting the stage for the National Strategy For Pandemic Influenza (NSPI)
In his speech identifying the priorities of the NPSI George Bush reported that “First, we must detect outbreaks that occur anywhere in the world; second, we must protect the American people by stockpiling vaccines and antiviral drugs, and improve our ability to rapidly produce new vaccines against a pandemic strain; and, third, we must be ready to respond at the federal, state and local levels in the event that a pandemic reaches our shores,".
The scale and scope of the NSPI Plan clearly demonstrates the scale of concern of a pandemic and the NSPI is a major step forward in validating the threat as it also increases the available funding to over $7.1billion.
Further, commenting on the NSPI, Homeland Security Advisor, Fran Townsend said
“We recognize that it is unusual for the government to provide this amount of detail about its plans, but we think it is essential to demonstrate to the rest of the world, our international partners, state and local governments, business, families, individuals, just how seriously we take this threat.”
Ms Townsend added that “(the administration) takes this threat very seriously, The President has given clear direction to departments (and agenices) that their plans must show, first, how they are going to protect their employees and create a safe work environment; second, how they will identify and ensure continuity of operations at times of significant and sustained absenteeism; third, how they will support the overall federal response to a pandemic and undertake actions contained in the plan; and fourth, how they will communicate pandemic preparedness and response guidance to their stakeholders -- public, private, state, and local governments.
Very much at the heart of the US strategy is strong support and for Business Continuity Management planning as the primary tool to ensure and maintain the viability of the US national infrastructure during a Pandemic. The guidance given is unequivocal and all organisations are being urged to ensure BC planning is in place and extended to address the threat of an H5N1 variant Pandemic.
The White House, through the NSPI, has stressed the importance to the whole of the US for business and other organisations to act, and act quickly to address the threat further citing that a huge amount of the responsibility now falls to companies as over 85% of US infrastructure is now run by the private sector.
However, while some parts of primarily ‘Corporate America’ have developed plans most have yet to act, with on-going research showing that whilst more organisations are reporting that they have BC Plans, these plans are either still ‘in development’ or are too targeted on IT issues to be of much use in a Pandemic scenario. Against this backdrop and a general public sense of media hype it is hard to see how effective the NSPI will be.
The need clearly still exists, despite the warnings, to main the ‘push’ on the serious issues raised by a potential Pandemic through reasoned debate, information and education, whilst continuing to stress the general value of BCM to organisations generally, but it will still require far greater support from senior executives and business owners to gain the ‘buy in’ and resources needed to develop the effective plans essential to overcome the threat posed.
The Continuity Forum will continue to lead in this area providing unbiased information and education on the issues for organisations of allsorts both in the UK and Internationally.
*** Download US NSPI Plan HERE ***
END
*** Back to Spring Newsletter page***
For more details on our events, workshops and industry development work, as well as the general activities of the Continuity Forum please contact us directly on +44 208 993 1599 or mail us HERE!
Please do contact Sara Mckenna or Russell Price .
Creating Continuity ... Building Resilience ...
If you would like to know more about how your organisation can get involved and benefit from working with the Continuity Forum, please email us HERE! or call on + 44 (0) 208 993 1599.
___________________________
