Officials draw up contingency plans to postpone activities and close parts of campus if pandemic peaks at start of term

Universities are working on emergency plans to postpone freshers’ week activities and shut down parts of their campuses if the swine flu pandemic peaks when students return in September.

Contingency plans to slow the spread of the virus, or to cope if the illness cripples staffing levels, include podcasting lectures and quarantining infected students in their halls of residence.

There are fears that the start of term could exacerbate the pandemic, with nearly two million students starting or returning to university, and hundreds of thousands crossing the country to begin their courses.

University officials said they were preparing to cope with outbreaks on campuses, but stressed that they were awaiting advice from health officials closer to the start of term before taking any action.

Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ umbrella group, is holding a conference next week for its members, called Coping with a Pandemic. An invitation to the event says it will consider the “possible escalation” of the pandemic as universities reopen.

Kate Dodd, director of student life at Birmingham University, is due to address the conference to offer advice on how to deal with swine flu on campus. She has seen details of dozens of universities’ contingency plans. Many are setting up “flu buddying” schemes, but some are also considering drafting staff from non-essential areas to deliver food and Tamiflu to students in quarantine, she said.

“We’re used to the idea that new students arrive, they get freshers’ flu and mumps outbreaks; it’s not unusual in the autumn term to have some sort of outbreak. We’ve all been there before, but there are greater risks attached to this and there will be more pressure on the system,” she said.

She warned that the Health Protection Agency was overstretched in some areas. “Universities are having to, in some cases, work quite hard to get the support and input and attention from the HPA that they need.”

Several universities contacted by the Guardian revealed details of their protocols for tackling the virus. All stressed they had no current plans to close or restrict their activity, but that they were readying themselves for all scenarios come the autumn.

• Imperial College London has already established a flu buddying scheme, and flu packs are being given out, which include face masks for buddies to prevent them becoming infected.

• Portsmouth University has considered ways to quarantine students in their accommodation. A spokesman for Portsmouth said: “We’re not in loco parentis but we have an obligation to students and staff and the wider public when students are moving to and fro and possibly spreading the virus.”

• Several institutions said their plans included periods of shutting down departments or part of their activities if public health officials ordered it.

• Queen’s University Belfast is reorganising exam halls for August’s re-sits to ensure all desks are more than 1m apart to prevent any spread. Students could be enrolled online instead of in crowded halls and the first semester’s work is being made available online in case there is widespread disruption. Denis Todd, the staff occupational health doctor at Queen’s, said: “The UK planning assumption is that the peak period of new cases will be somewhere between mid-September and mid-October and that’s exactly the wrong time for us.”

• Leicester University is expanding its programme of podcasting lectures so students can watch them at home. The student union is also planning in case some freshers’ events have to be cancelled, the university vice-chancellor, Bob Burgess, said. “At this stage, it’s too early for us to know for certain what will happen given how things are changing,” he stressed.

• University College London is also planning for every eventuality, including the possibility of department closures so that it can be “fully prepared”.

Sir Andrew Haines, chair of the Universities UK health committee, and director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “If it continues to be a mild infection we don’t need to be too alarmed. But every university is planning for every scenario in the new term.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills issued universities with guidance last month asking them to “urgently” review their emergency contingency plans. It advised them to base their planning on the assumption that they will remain open, but said each institution should review its processes for “reducing operations, or for implementing its closure” as well.

Unite, the student accommodation group, said it was working with universities across the country on their contingency plans. A spokeswoman said: “We want to manage the situation and keep our properties operational. It’s unlikely we will close them because it’s people’s homes.” She said they would be very unlikely to close halls and send thousands of students, some of whom may be infected, back into the community.