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Approaches to public policy: Systems-level preparedness for future pandemics
Reported by Aubin Ramon, CSaP Policy Intern (Sept-Dec 2024)
Dr Nikolai Kazantsev, a Research Fellow at Clare Hall College and the Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), University of Cambridge, presented the first online seminar in our latest CSaP Policy Fellows series on the theme of Approaches to public policy.
Dr Kazantsev leverages engineering and systems thinking approaches to strengthen public service preparedness to catastrophic risks from the National Risk Register (2023). Given that a pandemic is the most likely catastrophic risk to disrupt society in the UK, Dr Kazantsev framed his talk around a study of the COVID-19 pandemic management, highlighting key lessons to improve existing healthcare responses, enhance the quality and cost-efficiency of healthcare services, and reduce the length of lockdowns.
A Futures Wheel visualisation - a form of structured brainstorming around risks - recommended by the Government Office for Science, was used to map the cascading effects of a pandemic, displaying the immediate 'household needs' to reduce the probability of contamination (e.g. face masks, sanitizers, water filters), 'primary care needs' to reduce the adverse impacts of contamination (e.g. vaccines) to 'hospital necessities' to support intensive care of critically ill patients (e.g. ventilators).
Responding to the public concern of overloaded hospitals, the analysis shows that the fast reaction to household needs is of immense priority in a future health crisis, to help allocate more time for vaccine development (i.e. CEPI’s 100 days plan for vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics) and to drastically reduce demand for complex medical production (such as ventilators), and the medical services of intensive care, that require more hospital spaces, nurses and doctors.
The Ventilator Challenge UK was an emergency consortium that produced around 13,000 ventilators within 12 weeks during the COVID-19 outbreak. Dr Kazantsev discussed how this success was driven by collaboration, openness and digital innovation. However, challenges remained, such as the lack of certified ventilator designs, production facilities and production bottlenecks. Considering the lessons learned from this programme, similar emergency consortia can be formed faster by preparing the environment across supply chains to aggregate capabilities based on the limited number of products and their bills of materials.
To address future emergencies, Dr Kazantsev recommended:
- Supporting communities of firms, policymakers and academics around products likely to be in high demand during the five catastrophic risks listed by the National Risk Register (2023).
- Certifying simplified, fit-for-purpose designs of these products, relying on local components currently being produced for other markets.
- Developing an industrial AI tool to simulate emergency production and identify potential bottlenecks in the supply chain that would require more sourcing options.
The new citizen-focused methodology buffers demand for more complex production by providing simpler products that prevent contamination in a timely manner. It argues for enabling local, easy-to-scale emergency production, preventing contamination as long as possible, and avoiding the adverse impacts of the pandemic, such as lengthy lockdowns.
Dr Kazantsev and the Policy Fellows engaged in a follow-up discussion on the advantages of companies preparing for ‘Black Swan’ events as part of their resilience strategy, the dilemma of lowering regulators' standards, collaboration with neighbouring countries to tackle transport logistics, and the crucial role of preventive public consultations in designing emergency products better suited to the needs of the population.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published in November 2024 and has been reviewed and updated in June 2024 for accuracy and clarity.