Occupation Health and Safety: Emergency Response and Incident Reporting Procedures

Running head: OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
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OCCUPATION HEALTH AND SAFETY
1. Emergency response procedures
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

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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