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We know that decisions we take on diseases during an outbreak in the morning
have a real world impact in the afternoon.
A new case of foot-and-mouth has been confirmed
close to the Brecon Beacons National Park,
where 4,000 sheep have been slaughtered today. Ministers say...
2001 was an outbreak like nobody had ever seen
and we hope nobody ever will see again.
It led to various inquiries,
including one on what are the lessons that needed to be learned
out of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak
that could apply next time to try and ensure
we never had that sort of situation again?
Since that time, what we've concentrated on is our contingency planning.
It's things like ensuring that
we regularly review our plan, we exercise frequently,
and that we have all of our communication systems properly in place.
Today, we are far better prepared to handle a disease outbreak
than we have ever been before.
Here inside the protection zone there is still intense activity
with government vets and animal health officials
arriving at farms to check for any further sign of foot-and-mouth disease.
In an outbreak you need to be able to identify the right people
to move from one part of the country to another.
We had 16 disease control centres,
many of which produced their own local versions of how to deal with an incident.
We had to bring them together to make a single version of instructions
that everyone in future would be able to follow.
It makes no difference whether they're doing the job in Inverurie
or they're doing it in Truro, they should be doing the same job.
I think the key things are
communication, communication, communication, absolutely.
If you have a complex situation
and different people can do different things,
that's going to have untold consequences,
so enforcement agencies will start to question what the policy is,
what the right rules are.
So keep it simple.
In the height of, you know, what is a major crisis,
then you need a structure for the day.
We call that the battle rhythm. Every day follows the pattern.
So we've got a number of people, key people,
who need to come together at different points during the day.
But we have a sort of skeleton of that around something we call the Bird Table.
OK, thank you all very much for coming to Bird Table today.
The Bird Table is a concept, something we imported from the army,
so actually in an outbreak we have what we call a National Disease Control Centre,
and we have a Local Disease Control Centre,
and both operate Bird Tables.
Moving on to cleansing and disinfection,
on the farm, preliminary C&D was completed at 16:45...
It's where the key policy, legal, delivery, industry partners all come together,
get a chance afterwards to have a chat, see what's going on,
resolve any issues, find out what's happening.
It gives a chance for the industry at the Bird Table
to raise the things that are concerning them.
If they work effectively,
they are a very, very useful way of sharing information,
but more importantly, identifying issues and a route to resolve them.
We take pride now, and we're seen nationally and internationally
as very good as a collective team,
whether you're policy, whether you're vets,
whether you're local authorities, some of the farming community.
We are seen as experts because we work together.
There is only one ultimate test, regrettably, that's the next outbreak.
The only thing we know about the next outbreak is it won't be like the last one.
None of our outbreaks have been the same.
There's always been something new to learn in them.
You've got to regularly review your contingency plan.
I think the other thing is just be continually talking
to your colleagues from other organisations,
and making sure that you build those relationships,
so that when there is an emergency
then you can call on relationships that you've built.
Lessons learned for us now are a way of life.
I think back before they were seen as a threat,
it was all very much a blame culture,
"You must have got it wrong," but not any more.
It is the right thing to do. �