Disease lessons 'aided terror planning'

Health expert Ian Cumming said the outbreak was "distressing"

The knowledge gained by health experts during the Barrow Legionnaires' disease crisis has helped in the planning for possible bio-terrorism.

In Barrow, nearly 500 people suspected of having the illness went to Furness General Hospital.

The hospital ran at major incident status for nearly four weeks.

Staff say the scale of the outbreak and the types of medical conditions faced might be seen during a terror attack.

Ian Cumming, chief executive of Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust, said although many of his team had been involved in major incidents, such as road crashes, this was something new.

He said the outbreak went on for weeks and created real challenges in terms of beds, supplies and ensuring staff did not become too tired.

Another problem was in the early stages, when staff had no idea how many patients would be coming through their doors.

Mr Cumming said: "I think in terms of the medical aspects of treatment of the condition we had it under control from day one.

"The bits we perhaps didn't have any control over were how many people we were going to see and whether Furness General Hospital was going to be big enough."

'Bio-terrorist threats'

He said his abiding memory of what had been a distressing time was the teamwork shown by his staff, with people cancelling holidays to come in and work long shifts.

He also said the people of Barrow who had operations cancelled because of the outbreak were "superb".

He said: "I think we did learn a lot as we moved through this.

"We did speak to experts from around the world on Legionnaires' disease and of course what we have now been asked to do in return is to give other people the benefit of the advice we can offer as a result of having been through this.

"One of the perhaps rather unusual spin-offs that we have been involved in is being asked to speak at conferences relating to potential bio-terrorist threats.

"Because the way in which we saw the patients presenting to us - which was a large number of people coming into our accident and emergency department with conditions, problems with breathing, and then needing to admit people to a hospital - is what they would expect people to see in a potential bio-terrorist outbreak."