How to prepare your practice for a disaster or emergency
In our region, we can be subject to multiple hazards including bushfire, storms, flooding – riverine and flash, heatwave, power and communication outages, road and bridge closures and more.
In the face of this, general practices should have a comprehensive, localised emergency plan and a business continuity plan to enact in emergency or disaster events.
- Does your practice have a plan for an Emergency or Disaster event?
- Has it been recently reviewed and practiced?
- Have you thought about all the What Ifs? that may impact your Practice?
General Practices that KNOW THEIR RISKS, ARE PREPARED and STAY INFORMED
RESPOND and RECOVER BETTER from emergency and disaster events.
Wentworth Healthcare can support you to REMAIN OPERATIONAL and PROVIDE CONTINUITY OF CARE for your patients in any event.
We can support your Practice with planning for the What Ifs? in a range of ways:
- Helping you make an Emergency Plan with specialized tools and support
- Helping you review and practice your Emergency Plan
(It’s vital that once you have a plan you regularly review and practice it with your team).
- Helping you meet your Accreditation requirements for Emergency Management
(eg. Criterion 3.3 Our practice has an emergency response plan for unexpected events, such as natural disasters, pandemic diseases, or unplanned absences of clinical team members).
- Helping connect you with local emergency and community services and to ensure your plan has identified risks and information appropriate for your location.
- Our localized Disaster Health Pathways and search Disaster Planning.
- A range of training and support opportunities are available online and face-to-face.
- We can come and visit your practice to support you on site.
If you would like more support or we can help in any way, please reach out to your Primary Care Engagement Officer or the Disaster and Emergency Coordinator at disaster@nbmphn.com.au or call 4708 8100.
Tips for being prepared
Know your Risk:
Try to plan for the full range of hazards that might impact your practice such as bushfire, flooding – riverine and flash, storm, practice fire, snow, landslide, road or bridge closure, heat, power, internet and telecommunications outages.
Emergency Services websites have tools to help you identify risks:
You can talk with local experts about your risks by searching your local emergency service:
Making or reviewing an Emergency Plan:
There are a range of templates for making Emergency Plans. You don’t have to use a template; however, they are valuable as they may flag things that potentially you haven’t thought of. It can also be helpful to review your current plan against another template.
The NBMPHN Disaster Response Planning Toolkit and links to other templates and resources:
You can find additional emergency plan templates at business.gov.au by searching ‘emergency plan’. Your practice’s accreditation portal may also include useful resources.
Staying Informed:
Your Local City Council Emergency Dashboards are a one-stop shop and source of truth that will connect you to the emergency management services, road closures, traffic access etc. It's helpful to bookmark these on your computer.
For up-to-date information on your mobile, install the Hazards Near Me, Emergency Plus and BOM Weather Apps. Track the most up to date warnings:
For regular updates from NBMPHN, register for our News Updates to receive disaster updates.
Understanding Warnings, learn more about the different warnings to stay informed.
You can access all the Disaster Health Pathways and search Disaster Planning.
If you would like more support or we can help in any way, please reach out to the Disaster and Emergency Coordinator at disaster@nbmphn.com.au or 4708 8100.
Thinking about disasters or emergencies can be hard for those who have been previously affected, regardless of how much time has passed.
Support is available through our Medicare Mental Health Line on 1800 595 212.
This is not a crisis service. If you need urgent support outside of business hours, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the Mental Health Line on 1800 011 511. If you need immediate help or are at risk of harm to yourself or others, call 000.
Its important to:
- Exercise your plan on a regular basis (eg. as a desktop exercise).
- Contact other practices in your local area and agree on how you can offer mutual support (eg. if your practice is affected by a fire or another emergency and needs to close, you can have a plan in place to direct your patients to a nearby practice until the risk has been averted)
- Have a plan in place to send communications to patients about service disruptions or changes
HealthPathways
Our HealthPathways team led the national development of a suite of pathways addressing Disaster Planning and Management addressing issues related to patients and general practice preparedness and recovery.
The pathways that have been developed are:
If you need access to HealthPathways, contact the HealthPathways team for a username and password.
The most effective support you can provide during a time of disaster is to consider extending practice opening hours to accommodate an increase in patient demand.
Disaster Management Webinar
