Emergency Planning V Hoping For the Best


I was shocked the other day to be told by an emergency planner  that there was no point planning or thinking about anything other than Covid19 at the moment and that if anything else happened ‘we’ would have to ‘muddle along as best we can’.  Of course at one level that is what we all do, all of the time, but I had rather hoped for more from an organisation that is supposed to have expertise in planning for, and responding to emergencies.  Just because one thing has gone wrong (even a pretty big thing like a pandemic) it doesn’t mean that nothing else will happen.  It doesn’t mean that if you prepare properly that can’t optimise your response to a second or third incident.  Tomorrow there could be another Grenfell Tower, or a Ladbroke Grove or a 7/7 and it is our responsibility to be as ready as we can be in the prevailing circumstances.  Finger crossing is not a strategy. 
There is nothing surprising about the current situation.  Pandemics have sat at the top of the National Risk Register since it was first published.  All responding agencies have spent years preparing for it, and yet I heard an emergency planner say on the radio that ‘nobody could have foreseen this’.  Nothing was more foreseeable than a pandemic.
I what say which agency or service the hapless radio interviewee was from.  I didn’t catch it as I was only half listening, but I very much doubt that it was anybody connected with the NHS.  Health emergency planning is not perfect, but in my experience it is by far the most advanced part of the emergency planning world.  I am not sure why.  Perhaps because it is mandated in a way that cannot be ignored by senior staff.  Possibly the experience of daily crises has created a culture that means that the value of preparation is truly appreciated.  I am not sure, but EPRR (health emergency planning) could teach the rest of the public sector a thing or two.  Not perfect, but thoroughly professional.
Sixteen years after the passing of the Civil Contingencies Act some Cat 1 and Cat 2 responders see civil protection as a tick box activity to be carried out by junior staff.  When we get to the post pandemic review let’s hope that we will get serious about planning for what might happen in the future.  Otherwise we might as well have ‘we muddle through’ as the motto of the emergency planning community.

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