NHS office staff to go on the swine flu front line

Hundreds of administrators, managers and cleaners will be "redeployed" to frontline duties ranging from changing dirty linen to helping prepare bodies for mortuaries, if medical staff are unable to cope. The revelation comes as the number of Scots affected by the influenza H1N1 virus continues to rise.

Scotland is ahead of many other countries including Mexico, the source of the pandemic, in rates of virus victims per head of population.

Rapid spread of swine flu is now so advanced, the Scottish Government has switched tactics from trying to test all possible patients to simply assuming they have caught it based on symptoms and who they might have been in contact with.

Last night experts said the high numbers affected by swine flu showed the Scottish Government's "containment strategy" had not worked and warned official figures were a "very significant underestimate".

However, it remains unclear exactly why there are so many cases in Scotland.

So far, 11 cases are among healthcare staff thought to have caught the virus from patients. Fears are growing that large numbers of frontline healthcare workers could be laid low.

The new guidance from the Scottish Government's public health arm, Health Protection Scotland, was issued last week as the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a swine flu pandemic, the first global flu epidemic in 41 years.

It states: "When a pandemic strikes, it is likely to progress very quickly with the numbers of people falling ill, including frontline health care staff, rising rapidly in a short period of time. Non-frontline healthcare staff may be redeployed to carry out specific duties in NHS clinical settings."

Health boards will decide for themselves how the measures will be implemented and untrained staff will not be expected to actually treat patients.

Theresa Fyffe, director of the Royal College of Nursing in Scotland said yesterday: "Health boards are already working in partnership with RCN Scotland and the other trade unions to consider the procedures or changes that may be needed."

But Margaret Watt, chairwoman of the Scotland Patients Association said: "I don't think people will be happy with the idea of redeploying non-essential healthcare staff. We are short of doctors and nurses. Why do we have to wait until there is something like this before we look at the situation?"

The move comes as rates of the virus in Scotland soar to one of the highest in the world – one case per 10,799, compared with Mexico's rate of one in 17,625.

Last night the Scottish Government announced that there were 55 new cases in the past 24 hours bringing the total in Scotland to 463.

However, it also revealed that 12 cases previously diagnosed as positive were, in fact, negative. The mistake has been blamed on a "procedural testing error" at a Manchester laboratory.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert in infectious disease at the University of Edinburgh, said the spread of the virus showed that government's containment strategy had not worked.

"It's difficult to say why there are so many cases in Scotland," he said. "The first problem is that we were looking for it in people who had travelled to the US or Mexico, and we were only looking for it where we expected to find it. Now it's quite clear it's much more widespread than that. The official figures are probably a very significant underestimate."

Dr Rowland Kao, an expert in infectious diseases at Glasgow University's Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, said: "A lot is random chance. It could simply be that Scotland had more people travelling in Mexico, in the wrong places, than England and Wales."

But Labour's health spokesman Richard Simpson said the containment strategy had been successful. "I think the numbers are complete random chance, as viruses are so variable. The containment policy has worked extremely well," he said.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Scotland is not unique in seeing rising cases, but people are experiencing relatively mild symptoms. We have had success in eliminating transmission and there's reason for cautious optimism. Other countries have seen deaths and that has not been the case in Scotland."