Health and social care organisations fear electronic attack

Organisations in the health and social care sector are ignoring warnings of the dangers of electronic attack, major outbreaks of disease, and extreme weather conditions, and failing to take precautions, a report has warned.

The report, A Decade of Living Dangerously, produced jointly by the Chartered Management Institute and the Cabinet Office, found that NHS trusts and private sector nursing homes have not taken notice of potential problems outlined in the government’s National Risk Register, and have failed to draw up contingency plans.

Of the organisations surveyed, just 46 per cent had plans in place to cope with a major IT loss, and 43 per cent were prepared to deal with a massive loss of staff because of severe weather.

Of those organisations that did have continuity plans in place, only 46 per cent of them said they were tested.

Petra Wilton, director of policy and research at the Chartered Management Institute said: ‘Despite warnings, and in spite of the huge publicity surrounding natural and malicious disasters, it seems that employers still have a long way to go before they can claim to be truly resilient.’