Britain has faced and will be faced with many situations that fall into the category of either a local or national emergency. Floods will increase; power outages will happen over prolonged periods; fires will occur more often as the climate changes. An ageing demographic will continually put pressure on the NHS, which was never designed to cope with the numbers of people requiring its services. During 2019 and 2020 Britain and other nations have had to deal with Covid 19. Pathogens will always be challenging for the human population and we have been fortunate that Covid 19, whilst highly infectious has a low fatality rate when compared with other bacterial; fungal and viral infections that have caused widespread issues in the distant past (for which many of the pathogens continue to exist in a dormant state for example Yersinia pestis in soil or anthrax present in the carcasses of ancient animals now coming to the surface as the permafrost thaws due to climate change). What we don’t know is what the next emergency may be. However, it is best to be prepared for any eventuality, plan the work and then ‘work the plan’ in order to respond to a given situation. For every emergency there is opportunity and British companies of all sizes need to be able to engage in a coordinated response, as required by the Government. The Government needs to have an instantaneous picture of the skill sets and capacity of UK firms and have those firms already meeting required criteria so that Governmental bodies can rapidly turn dormant contracts into functional contracts with identified companies in order to respond to a given emergency. Take for example the issue with making homes and buildings more energy efficient. Whilst this is commendable and in the interests of the environment there are potential downsides that could cause a national emergency. The UK has not experienced really severe winters like that of 1962 – 63 for a long time. Historically we know prolonged severe weather has happened in the past and that often it is extremely cold with deep snow and frosts, often with little wind (so our offshore windfarms would not be working). Imagine how householders would fair if there home had no secondary heating (no fireplace) as in most of the newly built houses. The majority of people that have a gas boiler think that the gas supply would work fine in the event of a power cut but later find out that the pump needs electricity to function. Imagine all of the people in the independent retirement homes that have no access to heating when the electricity fails. The care homes are equally at risk. There would be a national emergency in the event of a prolonged power outage and this would be exacerbated by the fact that the nuclear baseload is being decommissioned and there is a forthcoming energy gap. Those with solar power on the roof think that the supply will continue when the National Grid is down but the fact is that supplies to the grid are turned off as people may be working on the lines to get the grid up and running again. The Government Think Tank needs to look at some of these scenarios to see what solutions can be found to reduce the impact of the problem. For instance, builders constructing ‘energy efficient’ homes that have no means of keeping the house warm during a power outage could be granted planning permission provided they also provide ‘power walls’ to each property. Power walls (such as the batteries on electric cars) could be fitted to each home with an automatic switch to run the boiler or provide electricity to the home when the grid is down). Managers of care homes and independent living homes could be tasked with setting up dormant contracts with local companies to supply generators in the event of a power outage and the wiring put in place ready to receive the generator, or indeed have their own power walls. At present, the country is reactive to the many emergency scenarios that it may face, both now and in the future. With some decent pre-planning, systems can be put in place to mitigate against the worst effects of the circumstances that present themselves. Both Government and Local Authorities need to know what companies are able to do in their area. A national database of company competence together with a ‘think tank’ of emergency planning specialists would provide solutions to foreseeable issues, whilst anticipating the unforeseen. Why not categorise the various challenges (Flood; Fire; Pathogens etc.) and see how the national infrastructure could be improved to provide a back-up system in the event of a national emergency? British companies can use their specialist knowledge and expertise to be part of the solution so that they are ready to act at a moments notice from the Government. Lets turn each crisis into an opportunity.
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