Week 5 Flashcards
Whaty are the 4 phases of the NSW Major Incident Supporting plan
Prevention
Preparation
Response
Recover
Define a major incident?
incident or event where the location, number, severity or type of live casualties requires extraordinary resources
Define a Catastrophic incident?
any natural disaster, act of terrorism or other man-made disasater that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualities or damage or disruption severley affecting the population, infrastructure, environment, economy, national morale, or government functions in an area
Define a significant incident?
an incident onvolving, or having the potential to involve, a finite number of casualities for whom the location, available resources and injury types present significant challenges to responding agencies
Define a mass gathering?
an organised or unplanned event where the number of poeple attending is suffiecint to s train the planning and response resources of the community, state or nation hosting the event.
What are the 2 key management responsibilities of the Department of health?
- Act as control agency for the protection of health
- Manage prehospital and hospital responses to emergency
incidents
What is involved in the DoH responsibility to act as control agency?
• Described in DoH ‘Public health control plan’
• Outlines how department will undertake its
responsibilities for incident control in cases involving
retail food contamination, human disease (including
pandemics), biological materials, radioactive materials
and food/drinking water contamination
What process is used by DoH in managing prehospital and hospital responses to an emergency incident?
- SHERP describes arrangements for this responsibility
(it does not describe the responsibilities of the DoH as the control
agency for the protection of health)
What are the 3 tiers to an incident used by the DoH?
State
Regional
Incident
What does the emergency management commissioner do?
Ensures response plans are executed accurately
What is a code brown?
used by health services and facilities to plan,
prepare, respond and recover from an external emergency.
What are the most common external emergencies under code brown?
- Transport accidents
- Chemical spills
- Natural emergencies such as fire and flood
What is the SHERP plan?
• Victoria’s prehospital and hospital response plan for
emergency incidents
• Subplan of the State Emergency Response Plan (part of the State Emergency Management Arrangements)
What does SHERP do (overview)?
• Outlines arrangements for coordinating health response to emergency incidents that go beyond day-to-day business
arrangements
• All-hazards, scalable plan
What are the principles of the SHERP plan?
- Safety of health responders is paramount
- Providing information to people involved in emergencies
- Planning is integrated
- Lines of command and coordination
- Collaboration at all levels
- Incident management principles are followed
- All-hazards approach
What is the Aim of SHERP?
• Reduce preventable death and permanent disability
• Improve patient outcomes by matching needs of injured
patients to appropriate level of treatment in a safe and
timely manner
What is the scope of SHERP?
• Describes principles, command and coordination
arrangements, roles and responsibilities for a health
emergency response that involves preshospital care,
patient transport, receiving hospitals and other healthcare
facilities
• Provides framework for planning the health response for emergency incidents and mass gatherings
WHat does SHERP do (detailed)?
What does it outline?
- Clarifies who is accountable for command and coordination of health response
- Outlines arrangements for escalating health response
- Describes how available clinical resources are organised
- Describes how health emergency response connects with broader state and national emergency management response and recovery arrangements
• Should be used by all individuals and organisations that operate under the plan, or are connected with the plan
through other emergency management arrangements, to
undertake planning and preparedness activities
What are the organisations included in SHERP?
- Community members
- Incident control agencies
- Department of Health
- Ambulance Victoria
- First aid providers
- Medical providers (including general practitioners)
- Health services (public and private hospitals)
- Residential and aged care services
- Relief agencies
- Local government authorities
- Event organisers
What does the State health Commander do?
Responsible for response and recovery phase in pre-hospital settings
When is SHERP escalated?
SHERP is triggered to escalate when information is received about an incident or potential incident that is likely to impact on normal operations
of the health system or any agency that operates within SHERP
What are the triggers for SHERP escalation?
• 000 calls to AV
• Multi agency dispatch requests to AV
• Warnings and advice issued by Control Agencies
• Information disseminated by VicPol Emergency Response
Coordinators
• Planning arrangements for major public events
What factors influence the level of escalation in SHERP?
• Complexity and scale of incident will determine which
functions of SHERP are established and escalated
• Level of escalation influenced by
- Location (regional/remote, proximity to hazardous facility)
- Agency involvement
- Political sensitivities/complexities
- Media interest
- Public awareness
- Risk environment
What are some planning considerations in regards to event health planning?
- Hazard analysis of the area
- Geographic location
- Entry and exit for emergency vehicles
- Crowd movement
- Types of spectators
- Time of year and weather conditions
- Public health issues
- Availability of food and water
