Does the nuclear report signal pan-island collaboration on the mend?

Friday 26 July 2024

Covid left Jersey and Guernsey further apart than ever, with the islands taking opposite strategies to tackle the pandemic – despite having collaborated on a pandemic strategy together.

The 29-page strategy document was put together in 2013 – seven years before pandemic took hold – and contained a detailed explanation of how the islands would, together, tackle any health crisis.

In 2019, the year before the pandemic hit, both islands were working on updating the strategy – but that new version had not been published by the time covid arrived.

This is, in part, one of the reasons it's believed that the islands ended up taking very different paths.

Pictured: Work was never finished to update the old CI Pandemic Plan due to the arrival of covid-19.

While Guernsey mostly closed its borders to maintain a near-zero case approach, Jersey aimed to strike a "balance".

This variance in strategy infamously caused much friction and damage to the inter-island relationship – Guernsey’s Deputy Peter Ferbrache infamously said in a speech in 2020 that he had been told that Jersey’s government were seen as “a bunch of bumbling idiots” for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic and said his island was a “much better-run Bailiwick”.

But the wounds appear to be healing.

Last year, the two islands pledged to work together once again on Public Health matters – and the first evidence of that collaboration has emerged this week with the publication of a nuclear risk report.

Commissioned by both islands, the report set out the measures both Jersey and Guernsey will need to take in the event of a nuclear disaster.

Jersey's Director of Public Health Peter Bradley explained that collaboration between the islands was currently working well.

"One of the lead officers in emergency planning works across both islands," he said.

"It's really embedded but also the Public Health teams work quite closely on a number of issues.

"We have a formal alliance which means that we discuss issues and where it is appropriate, we work together to develop plans."

However, he said, each island will always implement its own measures separately. And a joint pandemic plan may not necessarily be on the cards again.

Pictured: Professor Peter Bradley, who leads Jersey's Public Health team.

"We are considering preparedness for a number of scenarios, including for a future pandemic," he said.

"Though Jersey and Guernsey have very separate plans, we do discuss the ideas behind them," he added, meaning the two islands were "appropriately challenging one another".

It's hoped collaboration will extend beyond the realms of Public Health – last year, both Chief Ministers released lists of topics they were collaborating on, which ranged from wind farms to tourism. 

READ MORE...

Pandemic planning assumed the elderly less at risk (2020)

Calls to urgently update seven-year-old pandemic plan (2020)

Jersey and Guernsey: Is the Bailiwick band back together again? (2023)