Exercise Cygnus took place in 2016. They simulated an outbreak of disease, similar to what we’re currently experiencing.
They found: “The UK’s preparedness and response, in terms of its plans, policies and capability, is currently not sufficient to cope with the extreme demands of a severe pandemic that will have a nationwide impact across all sectors,”
One problem was that while each government body participating in the exercise had its own bespoke plans, enabling a flexible and decentralised response, nobody in the centre had oversight over everyone else.
Social care was found to be a particular concern.
The report listed four areas of “key learning” and 22 further “lessons identified” from the exercise, couched as recommendations to government.
The report was never published, it’s existence came as a surprise to many people, especially those in the care sector. Maybe if they’d taken note of it, we wouldn’t have the highest death rate per capita in Europe? Especially bearing in mind that many of the ‘mistakes’ made, had already been identified four years earlier.