A review into the UK government’s response to swine flu has found that the £1.2 billion that it spent on responding to the epidemic was money well spent.

Dame Deirdre Heine spent three months interviewing the people who were most heavily involved in the Britain’s fight against the virus and concluded that the response was proportionate. At the same time, she argued that there are lessons that should be learnt from the crisis.

With over 400 people having died from swine flu in Britain and 800,000 people contracting the virus, the idea that reactions had been over the top was “fallacious,” Hine said.

Nonetheless she said that in a similar future situation, there would be a need for even greater flexibility in planning and carrying out actions against an epidemic. Once the Department of Health had signed contracts with drug manufacturers, for vaccines and the treatment medication Tamiflu, there was little leeway given to change the amount of drugs that had been purchased. These drugs formed the major part of the government’s £1.2 billion pay out for swine flu.

Hine added that communications between government departments, the health services, media and the public had worked well.

In lieu of declining levels of swine flu, the government began to scale down its response earlier this year. This included closing the National Swine Flu Helpline that helped many people to access treatment and advice when the flu was having its most severe impact.

The World Health Organisation is still warning people to be vigilant about the global swine flu pandemic, particularly as levels of the virus are still rising in some parts of the world such as regions of West Africa.