The roles and responsibilities of primary care trusts in emergency planning: a report of a major incident in Sunderland, UK

Primary Health care and Disasters—The Current State of the Literature: What We Know, Gaps and Next Steps

“…Preparedness —In terms of preparedness, there are some examples in the US 10 and the United Kingdom 11, 12 that using current PHC infrastructure can help build capacity for community disaster risk reduction and for disaster response (The community health center example in the US and primary care trusts in the UK). Also, building infrastructure for surge capacity in the primary health care system including employing strategies that are not normally used has been described 13, 14 .…”

“…Mapping disaster prone areas using the eight elements of PHC (54) Preparedness/Response planning Using current PHC infrastructure to determine how to plan for disaster response-good examples of this is high-income countries where PHC is strong CHC (USA example) not normally used to emergency planning, but aware of need to increase capacity to do this. Primary Care Trusts-UK example-how the PCT can be integral to planning for emergencies (10)(11)(12)64,65) Preparedness (disaster response planning) Surge capacity Very important to plan surge capacity in PHC-may employ strategies not normally used-ex. Home based hospital care (15) , not just MDs, lay nurses etc.…”

Major incident planning in primary care trusts in north-west England: a cross-sectional survey

“…This is encouraging as this is the first step in mounting an effective response and problems have been reported in this area previously. 10 It is worrying that almost half of respondents reported that the incident command structure 'would be decided at the time'. Of equal concern was the lack of coherence and consistency in the use of gold/silver/ bronze type command structures, particularly given the extreme differences observed in the interpretation of these terms among responders who will be expected to cooperate during an incident.…”

“…Concerns have been raised that, for many PCTs, emergency planning has not been given a high enough priority and case reports have suggested that PCT responses to major incidents may be less than satisfactory. 6,10 A 2002 National Audit Office report, published just before PCTs took over the majority of Health Authority duties, found a number of shortcomings in Health Authority major incident plans, including training problems and failure to adequately test. 11 Similarly, analysis of major incident plans from 142 British hospitals in 1996 found that only 4% of these complied with all existing recommendations.…”