We can provide services in the following areas (see below for more detail on each):

• Crisis management and operational response
• Critical asset management
• Risk management
• Planning for mass casualty events
• Business continuity
• Protective security
• Exercising

CRISIS MANAGEMENT AND OPERATIONAL RESPONSE

We can advise on all aspects of setting up and running a Major Incident Operations Centre, drawing on our experience of setting up equivalant facilities in other organisations.

The services that we can offer in this area include advice on the following issues, among others:

• Command centre design, including communications equipment and room layout
• Job descriptions of key personnel, including experience needed and roles and responsibilities
• Standard operating procedures and action cards, including 24/7 on-call arrangements
• Integration into Ultra OPS/AIMS GIS and crisis management software
• Specialised operating procedures for terrorism, CBRN/HAZMAT, diseases and natural disasters
• Managing information flows to and from healthcare facilities, other agencies and media

CRITICAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

Awareness of the location, ranking, vulnerability and preparedness of an organisations critical asset is crucial both to facilitate proper planning and investment and to enable an appropriate operational response to major incidents. MRL can share its expertise in this area, gained from ground-breaking work in the UK which has set a new standard in critical infrastructure protection.

We can offer a range of services, including:

• Methodologies for defining criticality, including measuring clinical activity and identifying risks
• Measuring the efficacy of risk mitigation measures at site level
• Using this information to prioritise assets and compile an asset register
• Using Ultra OPS outputs to increase geographical awareness
• Using the asset register for emergency planning and to improve operational response capability

RISK MANAGEMENT
 
Understanding the nature of the risks that affect the healthcare economy is a pre-requisite to prioritising effort and expenditure in emergency planning. MRL can provide a robust risk management methodology that encompasses both external risks (such as terrorism, infectious disease outbreaks and natural disasters) and internal risks (such as loss of power, water or telecommunications).

We can cover all of the risk management cycle:

• Risk identification and compilation of a comprehensive risk register
• Risk evaluation (analysis of likelihood and impacts in health, social and economic terms)
• Risk mitigation measures (prevention to reduce likelihood, and preparedness to reduce impact)
• Planning assumptions based on these risks to facilitate investment prioritisation

PLANNING FOR MASS CASUALTY EVENTS

Effective emergency planning needs to take into account the possibility that some events will be of a scale that overwhelms the major incident plans of healthcare facilities and organisations. This could be simply because of the number of casualties, or because of the nature of the incident (including CBRN terrorism).

MRL can advise on how to draw up strategies to prepare for worst case scenarios of this nature:

• Producing practical guidance for healthcare facilities to improve their response capability
• Looking at the wider healthcare system to identify points of failure and interdependencies
• Encouraging co-operation between healthcare bodies and their counterparts in other agencies

PROTECTIVE SECURITY

The increasing threat from terrorism has a number of consequences for frontline healthcare delivery bodies. At the most basic level they must ensure that they are equipped to respond to a range of external incidents, but they must also prepare for the possibility that a terrorist attack will undermine their own response capability, whether this outcome is intended or not.

MRL has specific expertise in translating the generally understood principles of protective security into physical measures and procedures that are suited to the nature of the threat facing organisations, and that can be implemented in practice without undue expense or disruption to business activities.

EXERCISING

MRL has worked with a number of private and public sector organisations to run exercises to test emergency preparedness for several years. We can provide expert advice for all kinds of exercises, from small table-top or command post to multi-day, multi-agency live exercises, and for a range of scenarios including pandemic influenza, conventional or CBRN terrorism, industrial action, and natural disasters such as flooding.

Our exercise planning and delivery services include:

• Preparation of standard operating procedures and action cards for key individuals
• Delivery of validated exercise scenarios that are designed to test key people and processes
• Provision of key personnel to run exercises, including exercise controllers and umpires
• Ultra OPS/AIMS incident management and GIS software for the exercise