Report to: Board of Directors Date of Meeting: 26 July 2017 Report Title: Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) 2016/17 Annual Report, Policy and Major Incident Plan Status: For information Discussion Assurance Approval Regulatory requirement Mark relevant box with X X X X Prepared by: Carol Woolgar, Resilience and Governance Manager Executive Sponsor Stacey Hunter, Chief Operating Officer (presenting): Appendices (list if applicable): Purpose of the Report It is deemed good practice for the board to receive an annual report on Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response. The attached report informs the Board of Directors of activity relating to all aspects of Emergency Planning from 1st April 2016 to 31 st March 2017, reports on exercises undertaken by the organisation, significant incidents, and the resources available to enable the organisation to meet the requirements of these NHS England EPRR core standards. In addition, the Board is required by NHS England to approve the Trust s Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response policy (available here) and the Major Incident Plan (located here). Key points for information The Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response policy has been approved by the Joint Health, Safety and Resilience Committee and ratified by the Procedural Documents Ratification Group The Major Incident Plan role cards have been individually approved by the role card owner and the plan as a whole, approved by the Joint Health, Safety and Resilience Committee. The report brings together the requirements for Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response at the Trust, particularly o Compliance with the requirements for testing Major incident arrangements o Revision of key response plans o Future requirements to comply with new and emerging national guidance on Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Recommendation (i) To approve the Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Policy and Major Incident Plan; (ii) To receive and note the Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response 2016/17 Annual Report: and (iii) To delegate responsibility for sign-off of the Emergency Planning Core Standards to the Chief Operating Officer. 1
Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response Report April 2016 - March 2017 Introduction This report provides an overview of Airedale NHS Foundation Trust s activity for 2016-2017 in delivering Emergency Planning, Resilience and Response (EPRR) and addressing the contingency planning requirements of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and NHS England EPRR core standards and guidance. During 2016-2017, the Trust s emergency planning systems and processes were reviewed, to ensure they were fit for purpose and that the Trust is able to respond appropriately to a major accident, pandemic flu, or other major disaster. Background The requirements of EPRR at the trust are set out in the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. As a category 1 responder the trust is required to: o assess the risk of emergencies occurring and use this to inform contingency planning o put in place emergency plans o put in place business continuity management arrangements o put in place arrangements to make information available to the public about civil protection matters and maintain arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency o share information with other local responders to enhance co-ordination o co-operate with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency NHS Standard Contract - Service Condition 30, requirements include o nomination of an Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO) to assume executive responsibility and leadership for EPRR. The AEO for ANHSFT is the Chief Operating Officer (Stacey Hunter). o each organisation to put in place a business continuity plan, an incident response plan and an evacuation plan o conduct exercises o participate in joint planning and multi-agency, regional working NHS Emergency Preparedness Framework, this is a strategic national framework containing principles for health emergency planning for all NHS England at all levels including NHS provider organisations, providers of NHS-funded care, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs), GPs and other primary and community care organisations NHS EPRR Core Standards, which set set out clearly the minimum EPRR standards which NHS Organisations and providers of NHS-funded care must meet. Emergency Planning Structure Led by the Resilience and Governance Manager identified leads are assigned key responsibilities in supporting the planning and testing of plans in relation to both major Incident (MAJAX) and contingency planning. Oversight of the EPRR process is provided by the H&S Operational Group and the Joint Health, Safety and Resilience Committee. 2
The EPRR policy describes the overall approach to EPRR at the trust; this was approved by the Trust procedural Documents Ratification Group on 15 th November 2016 and remains in force until 1 st December 2019. It is available on the Procedural Documents page of Aireshare here. As an expression of best practice, by way of this report, approval is sought from the Board for this policy. EPRR specific risks (as identified in the national and community risk registers) are recorded on the Trust risk register system, further EPRR specific risks or risk with EPRR implications are also recorded on this system and are therefore available to all staff with system access. In compliance with the Trust s standard risk assessment process, risks are escalated through local service reporting systems and, where assessments score 9 or above they are escalated via the Joint Health, Safety and Resilience Committee. Major Incident Planning (MAJAX) The Trust MAJAX Plan was reviewed in May 2016 and approved by the Joint Health, Safety and Resilience Committee. A series of role cards reflect all key roles required to manage the response should there be a disaster. The plan is continuously updated as role card holders or exercises identify required changes and lessons learnt. In addition the Trust is represented at cross-regional working groups and forums. This also ensures that lessons learnt from other organisations are identified and implemented appropriately within the organisation. As a minimum requirement all NHS organisations are required to undertake a major incident exercise every three years; a table top exercise every year and a test of communications cascades every six months. ANHSFT has successfully achieved these requirements as follows: Communications tests carried out in June 2016 and November 2016. Involvement in exercise Spiral an Emergo ( Live ) exercise involving the whole of the West Yorkshire Trauma Network and coordinated by Public Health England in November 2016 Where issues were identified these were escalated to the appropriate leads / senior managers and actions taken to resolve the issue. The full MAJAX plan is available here and Board approval is requested. Contingency Planning Considerable work was undertaken in 2016-17; including the update of all departmental contingency plans, the review of the CBRN* plan, Pandemic Flu plan and the creation of the OPEL (Operational pressures escalation levels document ) replacing the Resource Escalation Action Plans (REAP). *Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear The annual heatwave and winter plans were reviewed against national and regional guidance and subsequently approved. They will continue to be updated through learning and as a result of updated national or regional guidance. Pandemic Flu The Trust is required to have in place an approved plan to respond to a flu pandemic, irrespective of source. Planning has required the Trust to work closely to the Department of Health guidance in responding to a pandemic and continued service delivery. The pandemic flu plan was updated in November 2016 to reflect current organisational arrangements and changes to national guidance. 3
Engagement with External Stakeholders In response to emergency planning the Trust has engaged with a range of stakeholders through the following: Attendance at multi-agency EPRR Groups in North and West Yorkshire Attendance at NHS EPRR Groups for North Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and the region Attendance at specific events including Industrial Action and winter planning workshops Throughout the year the Trust has worked closely with NHS England Regional Team, CCGs, Local Authorities and other NHS Organisations across a range of planning and information sharing exercises. Assurance The West Yorkshire Local Health Resilience Partnership (LHRP) undertakes an annual EPRR assurance process to ensure that NHS-funded member organisations are compliant with the EPRR core standards published on the NHS England website. ANHSFT submitted a assessment of Substantial Compliance against these standards in September. This statement with the associated action plan was reviewed through the LHRP assurance process on 25 th October 2016 and no issues were identified. Progress against this action plan is monitored by the JHS&RC. In addition to the core standards assessment, the Yorkshire Ambulance Service (YAS) is in the process of carrying out an audit of the Trust s CBRN* arrangements, the results of this will be reported to the JHS&RC. Progress 2015-16 Key Actions The following actions were identified in the 2015-16 Annual report ACTION STATUS COMMENTS Plan and implement the 2016 Desktop MAJAX exercise Continue to support the development of operational resilience plans for events such as industrial action, winter, etc. Support departments to further develop their contingency plans to deal with unforeseen events / failures. the NHS England core standards and YAS CBRN action plans / Ongoing This was superseded by attendance at the live Emergo exercise (exercise Spiral) as described above For actions with due dates falling within the 2015/16 assurance round. Actions resulting from the 2016-17 assurance process remain ongoing (as per the action plan) Next steps and key actions for 2017-18 include: 4
Further development of the Trust s IT contingency arrangements, this will include lesson s identified by the Leeds Pathology system outage and North Lincolnshire and Goole Ransomware attack Consideration and development of a live MAJAX exercise to rehearse and develop MAJAX arrangements within the new Acute Assessment Unit Completion of Action plans resulting from the NHS England EPRR Core Standards Assurance process and YAS CBRN audit Continue to review and support the development of existing contingency plans to ensure they are fit-for-purpose. May 2017 Carol Woolgar Resilience and Governance Manager 5