Thursday 28 January 2010

Disraeli comes to mind

I was at a meeting recently when Disraeli was quoted. Benjamin Disraeli was twice Prime Minister (1868, 1874- 80) and is oft quoted. The quote that was used seemed particularly apposite to our recent experiences during the cold weather. The thrust of what he said was that what we anticipate seldom occurs and what we least expect generally happens.

In our organisation, probably like many others, we have developed over the past 6 months robust contingency plans in the event of an outbreak of swine flu. We have met monthly sometimes weekly developed a range of plans for different situations and most recently arranged for the vaccination of all our service users and staff. We believed we were as prepared as we could be. However the recent cold snap and resulting snow and ice did catch us by surprise; hence Disraeli. We will ensure next time that we do not run out of salt and grit next time. It could have been that the planning we did to ensure our services would continue in the event of staff shortages during the flu outbreak would have been required but it was not the case because our staff made it in through the snow and ice, setting off early to ensure that the services were well covered. It is a real credit to them.


Hilary Rowland
28.1.10