Adverse Weather Plan

Introduction

This plan is intended to provide generic response to adverse weather conditions including cold, heatwave, flooding, snow & ice conditions which could impact on the business continuity of the Trust. This plan should be read in conjunction with National updated Heat / Cold Weather and departmental business continuity plans, to ensure standardised response, maintenance of patient safety and minimisation of departmental service disruption.

Legislation

NHS funded organisations, (including commissioners and providers of NHS funded services), must ensure they are prepared to respond to an incident or emergency. This programme of work is referred to in the health community as Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR). The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 (provides a duty on category-one responders to warn and inform the public before, during and after an emergency and the Care Act 2014 requires that the suitability of accommodation is considered in assessing safety & wellbeing). The Local Resilience Forum (LRF) and Strategic Co-ordinating Group (SCG), bring together emergency planning and response arrangements run by local government and the NHS.

Local Health Resilience Partners (LHRPs) – working with Integrated Care systems (ICS’s) have been established to bring together local health organisations to support operational, tactical & strategic planning. The bringing together of these respective organisations helps to ensure that the health sector plays an effective, co-ordinated role in multi-agency planning and response, based around the various agencies' and providers’ responsibilities at a local level.

Policy Details

See also:

• The National Cold Weather Plan (2021)
• Trust Corporate Business Continuity Plan (2021)
• Local Business Continuity Plans (2021)
• Internal Incident Plan (2021)
• Flu Plan (2021)
• Heat Wave Plan for England - PHE (2022)
• Energy and Climate Change Adaptation Strategy (2015)
• GOV.UK: Coronavirus
• GOV.UK: Working Safely During COVID-19