How we plan for emergencies

Fortunately, emergencies are rare, however, we must be prepared. An emergency or major incident is any incident that calls for our response when services can’t deal with it under their day-to-day incident management procedures and resources.

This is likely to include wide-spread flooding, transport incidents such as a train crash, chemical incidents, flu pandemics, animal disease and terrorist incidents.

Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, we have a statutory duty to prepare for emergencies.

This requires us to:

• assess local risks to inform emergency planning
• put in place emergency plans
• warn and inform the public
• share information with other local responders to enhance co-ordination
• co-operate with other local responders to enhance co-ordination and efficiency
• put in place business continuity management arrangements
• promote business continuity management to businesses and voluntary organisations

Avon and Somerset local resilience forum

As part of this duty, we attend the Avon and Somerset local resilience forum. This forum is a multi-agency partnership of different organisations. 

It includes local Avon and Somerset:

• emergency services 
• health services
• Maritime and Coastal Agency
• Environment Agency
• voluntary agencies
• utility companies
• transport providers
• government authorities

The aim is to:

• plan and prepare for emergencies
• deliver an effective and efficient response to an emergency
• support and enable communities 
• increase resilience to emergencies

The Avon and Somerset Local Resilience Forum produce a Community Risk Register. This explains the types of risks our area may be exposed to and how agencies are prepared to deal with them. 

Before an emergency

Planning

We write emergency response plans, in partnership with our Avon and Somerset Local Resilience Forum multi-agency partners. These plans direct our response to different emergency situations.

Plans vary between:

• site specific plans
• risk specific plans
• generic response plans, which could be used in multiple scenarios

Exercise

We exercise those plans, to give staff the opportunity to practice skills and test the requirements of the plan. 

These exercises may be:

• tabletop discussions
• live play
• single agency (just our staff) or multi-agency (involving our partners from the Avon and Somerset local resilience forum)

Debrief

After an exercise (or incident) we ask for feedback and hold debrief sessions. This gives those involved the opportunity to help develop our emergency plans. They can identify what went well and suggest areas for improvement. 

We review plans and update them on a regular basis. We use these suggestions to continuously improve our plans. We also use the lessons learned from other incidents around the country to make changes to our own plans.

During an emergency

In the event of an emergency, we aim to keep services running normally, but we would help the emergency services by providing:

• support for the police to evacuate people, clear sites, and close roads
• rest centres (also known as community emergency shelter - temporary accommodation, usually a leisure centre or other community facility) for use by anyone affected by the emergency
• emergency transport during an evacuation
• providing emergency food during an evacuation
• specialist advice, for example engineers, planners, surveyors, trauma and after care
• temporary mortuaries (in a mass fatalities incident)
• public information

After an emergency

Following an emergency, we help communities to recover. We may also offer more support to people affected by the situation. This assistance will be made known at the time. 

If you have been affected by any incident, anywhere, anytime, there is help available to you.

We have a statutory duty to warn the public of potential emergency situations. We will inform you of ways you can keep yourself and your loved ones safe. 

See our dedicated community webpage for more information and advice on the things you can do to be prepared for an emergency.