Ex Scottish CMO Catherine Calderwood warns NHS staff are not able to plan for pandemics

The former Chief Medical Officer for Scotland is warning NHS staff are not able to prepare for future pandemics because of increasing workloads.

Dr Catherine Calderwood has been giving evidence to the UK covid-19 inquiry after being forced to step down from her post during lockdown for breaking the rules.

She served in the post between 2015 and 2020 and quit when she was caught travelling to her holiday home during the early days of the covid pandemic.

She said: "Our NHS is at the moment working at or if not beyond full capacity at all times.

"If you take my own area - the labour ward - the babies keep coming day and night, and we don't have the luxury of saying 'there's going to be an exercise where we're going to send six of you for mask fitting', for example.

"We haven't got the luxury of being able to have six spare midwives who could then go off to do that exercise."

The former CMO added that staff are not in the position to be able to leave patients in emergency situations on a day-to-day basis to go and train for a future outbreak of a new illness.

She added: "We don't have the luxury to say there is going to be an exercise where we send 6 of you for mask fitting.

"It is very difficult, without increased capacity in the NHS, to be able to do that."

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