Emergency response procedures are plans that are implemented by the organisation which would be put to place during emergency situations or hazards. The major benefit of developing emergency procedures are to provide a guide to the employees during emergencies. There might be certain situations which might come unannounced in the workplace, such as collapsing of the building, fire in the workplace or other situations which needs the attention of emergency services and other trained personnel to evacuate the people who are stuck in the hazard (Wex et al. 2014). The whole developed procedure will help to train the people to response immediately to the hazard and not panic as panic can aggravate the whole situation and cause much more damage than is possible. The procedure will help to determine the necessary equipment that would help to control the situation till help arrives at the place of the hazard. Due to the sudden nature of these emergencies it is necessary that a plan is developed earlier so that the damage is not intense and the people can get themselves out from the situation into safety and also help other people so that much damage is not incurred (Wheeler et al. 2013). Emergency response procedure is an important part of any organisation.
Emergencies have shortage of time and require sudden actions. If a proper plan or procedure is not determined earlier then it might cause panic and confusion in the minds of the people who are present in the situation. This why proper training is given so that they can themselves control it before the arrival of emergency services since their arrival would also take a certain amount of time (World Health Organization 2017). People should not completely rely upon the emergency services to help them during these situation since the waiting time would cause more damage and poor judgement in these situations could result in more losses. The main objectives of the emergency response procedures are to help the people to handle the situation till the proper help is available. It helps to prevent the number of injuries on people and fatalities and also reduce the damage that is made to the property.
Every workplace should have a fully prepared emergency plan procedure. The implemented procedures will help the organisation and the employees of the workplace during hazardous situations. An emergency can become huge within a few seconds. This why it is necessary for every organisation to have a full proof plan which will be able to protect the employees, clients, contractors, visitors and any other people who are present in the building during the emergency. The emergency procedures need not be a mandatory section of the corporate policy, it should be implemented to minimize the harm that could be caused to the infrastructure, employees and the environment during the hazard and use efficient techniques to save the people who are present during that time (Hursey 2013). There are five areas which could help to forma concrete emergency response procedure. The five areas are prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery. Prevention is the ways to prevent the actual hazard or stop the imminent threat from expanding to a much higher scale. Protection is the procedure to protect the people who are present in the place of the hazard such as the employees, visitors, clients and the other visitors. Mitigation is the procedure to lessen the loss of life on the people in the area, the property and infrastructure by reducing the impact, risk and threat of the hazard (Liu et al. 2014). Response is the procedure to save the lives of the people who are present during the hazard efficiently and effectively, along with protecting the environment and property and adhere to the basic needs of the people who suffer in the incident. Recovery is the procedure which comes after the hazard is in control. In this procedure, different operations take place so that the health, safety and other aspects of the infrastructure, people and community can be restored.
Emergencies can occur at any time, therefore, it is necessary that these procedures are planned from the establishment of the company. The procedures should be implemented according to the nature of the business, the infrastructure of the enterprise, the space of the property and all other aspects such as weather, power failures and others (Kerle and Hoffman 2013). Keeping these factors in mind, the emergency response procedure would follow certain guidelines. Firstly, the objectives based on which the emergency procedure would be implemented. Different density of hazards could have different procedures, therefore, it is mandatory to determine the kind of hazard that the emergency procedure is being implemented. Secondly, the risk should be assessed before the resources are determined for the process. The hazard situation has to be determined and reviewed so that the threats are understood properly in this stage (Wilde 2013). Thirdly, the resources required to stabilize the environment during the hazard is to be determined in this stage. The resources and capabilities of the organisation to reduce or counter the threat is the most important part. Without the right resources the organisation would not be able to stop the threat or reduce it and protect the people present in their workplace. The internal and external sources has to be indentified such as equipment, people, systems which will help to reduce and protect during the threat. Fourthly, an incident management team has to be created (Nicoll and Owens 2013). This team would consist of people who have proper training regarding emergency protection, knowledge about the emergency procedures and plan and a proper connection has to be established between the external sources and the team so that they are able to contact during the emergency situation. This team plays a major part during the hazardous situation as they have to be capable enough to manage the whole hazardous situation.
Fifthly, the regulations which would be applicable for the workplace has to be evaluated. This stage would determine the different planning regulations which would be important to the workplace and ensure that they are compliant to the property. Sixthly, the protective response procedures have to be developed which will include protective actions that have to be implemented during the hazard. These actions include lockdown, shelter, evacuation and other protective acts (Jahre and Fabbe-Costes 2015). Seventhly, the information required for the hazard which should be known by all the employees should be established so that the people would have knowledge about the emergency steps that should be taken during the emergency. Eighthly, the organisation should maintain proper coordination with the different public emergency services near the workplace. These services will be the ones who will come to aid during the hazard and relive the people who are stuck in the hazard. The services include fire services, police, emergency medical providers and such. The response time for each these services should be determined so that the capability of the emergency services are understood which would be needed to stabilize the hazardous situation. Ninthly, proper emergency response training should be provided to all the people who are present in the workplace. This is required so that they know what to do in hazardous situation such as providing first aid, helping another employee and others (Hawe 2015). All the people working in the organisation should have complete knowledge about the emergency plan so that they know every exit routes and other places which could save them from the hazard. Every person should be given individual roles and responsibility so that they do not get confused during the situation and know what they have to do to prevent from further damaging other people and the workplace.
Lastly, the workplace would have to prepare the people in the workplace for the sudden hazards. For this they should prepare drills and exercises and design them in such a way that they match the real life hazardous situation. This would help them to gain knowledge and expertise about the situation and provide understanding as to what will happen if the real situation takes place. The drills and exercises should also be designed so that the plan is p0utr into effect and the participants know what to expect from the situation. The strategies and tactics that would be required in emergency situations is determined in this stage. These are the different stages of the emergency procedure which is needed for the response of the people in the workplace (Li et al. 2015). There are a few mandatory inclusion in the whole emergency procedure which should be kept in mind. Proper evacuation routes should be identified as well as different ways of escaping from the building and the employees should have knowledge about these routes and these routes should always be kept unobstructed. The safety of the staff is the most important factor during these situation and the medical aids should first evacuate all the staff from the hazard zone and then concentrate on other factors such as the property (Cohen et al. 2013). Additionally, the organisation should have a safe zone where the employees can gather during these situations and a head count can be done so as to determine that all the staff are safe and no harm has been suffered by anyone.
Reporting and notifying all the incidents, hazard and incidents are a mandatory process in the aftermath of the emergency situation. There are different kinds of reports for different situations. A report is required in case of an event which has caused damage, loss or ill health of a person during the emergency termed as an incident. A report has to be made of the event which has the potential to cause harm, injury or ill health to a person termed as a near miss. A report has to be made for a situation which presents a potential for an incident, near miss or an accident termed as a hazard (Reed et al. 2013). In these three situations it is necessary to submit a report and notify the government about the hazard so that proper investigations could be made regarding the cause and impact of the hazard. The reporting is also required for statutory purposed in case an employee suffers any injury or is affected by any disease which can result in the death of that employee. The different procedures for incident notification are as follows. Firstly, the people in the organisation who are involved in the incident have to report it to their supervisors who might be the directors, management. The supervisor will in turn notify the emergency facility services in case the people present in the incident require any medical attention (Winckler, Bach and Bernhaupt 2013). Notification of the incident must be reported immediately as soon as the incident occurs, irrespective of the day or time of the incident. In case of any injury which is sustained during the incident, the supervisor should be notified of the same so that he could notify the safety officer who can act on their knowledge and take the necessary steps.
Notification should also be made in case of death of any employee in the hazard so that the required procedure could be implemented by the safety officer. Notification is important so that the supervisor has knowledge about the situation which is occurring at the workplace and can notify the safety officer instead who can take the necessary steps to reduce or save the people from the hazard (Vallejo-Gutiérrez 2014). After the notification process, incident reporting is also mandatory. Reporting is done after the immediate steps are taken for the people who are stuck in the hazard. The reporting process involving providing knowledge about the incident and the number of people who have suffered injury or have received medical treatment due to the impact of the hazard. Moreover, the number of people who have died during the incident have to be reported as well. All the occurring of the incident are documented so that the people who have faced the incident are provided with proper compensation and the families of the dead also receive compensation for their loss (Bierie 2015). The supervisor should appoint a person who have been either present in the scene or have full knowledge of the incident to gather the facts and report ot through the incident report form and a proper documentation is maintained so that there is no further complication regarding he occurrence of the incident.
References:
Bierie, D.M., 2015. Enhancing the National Incident–Based Reporting System: A Policy Proposal. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 59(10), pp.1125-1143.
Cohen, D., Sevdalis, N., Taylor, D., Kerr, K., Heys, M., Willett, K., Batrick, N. and Darzi, A., 2013. Emergency preparedness in the 21st century: training and preparation modules in virtual environments. Resuscitation, 84(1), pp.78-84.
Hawe, G.I., Coates, G., Wilson, D.T. and Crouch, R.S., 2015. Agent-based simulation of emergency response to plan the allocation of resources for a hypothetical two-site major incident. Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 46, pp.336-345.
Hursey, J., AT&T Intellectual Property I LP, 2013. Systems and methods for providing emergency callback procedures. U.S. Patent 8,369,822.
Jahre, M. and Fabbe-Costes, N., 2015. How standards and modularity can improve humanitarian supply chain responsiveness: The case of emergency response units. Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 5(3), pp.348-386.
Kerle, N. and Hoffman, R.R., 2013. Collaborative damage mapping for emergency response: the role of Cognitive Systems Engineering. Natural Hazards & Earth System Sciences, 13(1).
Li, N., Becerik-Gerber, B., Soibelman, L. and Krishnamachari, B., 2015. Comparative assessment of an indoor localization framework for building emergency response. Automation in Construction, 57, pp.42-54.
Liu, Y., Fan, Z.P., Yuan, Y. and Li, H., 2014. A FTA-based method for risk decision-making in emergency response. Computers & Operations Research, 42, pp.49-57.
Nicoll, S.R. and Owens, R.W., 2013. Emergency response & business continuity: The next generation in planning. Professional Safety, 58(9), p.50.
Reed, S., Arnal, D., Frank, O., Gomez-Arnau, J.I., Hansen, J., Lester, O., Mikkelsen, K.L., Rhaiem, T., Rosenberg, P.H., St. Pierre, M. and Schleppers, A., 2013. National critical incident reporting systems relevant to anaesthesia: a European survey. British journal of anaesthesia, 112(3), pp.546-555.
Vallejo-Gutiérrez, P., Baneres-Amella, J., Sierra, E., Casal, J. and Agra, Y., 2014. Lessons learnt from the development of the Patient Safety Incidents Reporting an Learning System for the Spanish National Health System: SiNASP. Revista de Calidad Asistencial, 29(2), pp.69-77.
Wex, F., Schryen, G., Feuerriegel, S. and Neumann, D., 2014. Emergency response in natural disaster management: Allocation and scheduling of rescue units. European Journal of Operational Research, 235(3), pp.697-708.
Wheeler, D.S., Geis, G., Mack, E.H., LeMaster, T. and Patterson, M.D., 2013. High-reliability emergency response teams in the hospital: improving quality and safety using in situ simulation training. BMJ Qual saf, pp.bmjqs-2012.
Wilde, E.T., 2013. Do emergency medical system response times matter for health outcomes?. Health economics, 22(7), pp.790-806.
Winckler, M., Bach, C. and Bernhaupt, R., 2013. Identifying user experience dimensions for mobile incident reporting in urban contexts. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, 56(2), pp.97-119.
World Health Organization, 2017. Emergency response framework (ERF).
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