21 March 2003
The Department of Health will not relax hospitals' performance targets even though most may be asked to treat soldiers injured in the Iraq conflict in addition to their normal work.
Hospitals will be expected to handle any influx of military casualties as they would victims of any other emergency.
The department insists that targets were set to take account of this, and that enough capacity exists in the system.
Injured personnel will be flown to different airports on a rota for dispersal to nearby hospitals according to a plan designed to ensure that no hospital becomes overloaded, a department spokeswoman said.
She said it would seek to avoid swamping hospitals that specialise in treatments commonly needed for military wounds, such as plastic surgery and head injuries.
The spokeswoman said: 'The NHS is geared up to deal with major incidents and accidents, so the expectation is that it will be able to cope.
'Part of contingency planning is to spread the load around the NHS, so hospitals should still meet targets.'
A further issue is that six large hospitals are joint NHS and military establishments, and may lose staff as medical reservists are called up.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman Evan Harris said: 'War casualties, for political if not clinical reasons, are going to put even more stress on a service where priorities are being distorted by the imposition of political targets.'
He predicted that services not subject to government targets would suffer as resources were withdrawn to deal with military casualties.
Meanwhile, the government has set up a new section of the Home Office website to advise the public on responding to terrorist incidents.
It urges 'sensible precautions', such as having canned food and bottled water to hand at home.
PFmar2003
