Covid-19 Series: Capacity and Capability

How much you have and whether you can use it when you need it .

Emergency preparedness is generally conceptualised as a cycle of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery from public health threats. The unknown and unpredictable dynamics of covid-19 have proved challenging and response plans have struggled to adapt, in the face of this uncertainty, to rapidly and effectively deliver the response required at national and local levels.

The covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for improved national and local pandemic response – no country will emerge from this pandemic without some hard lessons to learn. As part of our covid-19 series, this article looks at potential learnings based on a need to improve capacity and capability. 

Capacity: resources that can be used in an emergency situation, including ICU beds and trained nurses. 

Capability: the ability of people within the system to access and use that capacity in a health emergency. 

Follow the link to read the article and find out what capacity and capability lessons could be learnt from the covid-19 pandemic:

Read the article

Elly is an Associate in Health Policy and Clinical Evidence practice. Elly is involved in all stages of projects, from business development and project design through to execution and completion. Elly has specific expertise in emergency preparedness and response, having worked on a number of reviews in this area for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and other European public health agencies, including a number of peer-reviewed publications.