Emergency Response and Recovery: A Case Study of the British Red Cross

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UNIT 5: INTEGRATED EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT:
ASSIGNMENT 2
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Executive summary
The present report analyses the principles of emergency response and the recovery stages of an
emergency response. For this purpose, a public service organisation of the UK has been selected
to identify their emergency services and disaster management stages. Needs of debriefing are
analysed and recommendations are provided to improve the planning and debriefing for
emergency services. UK based and international emergency incidents are analysed and their
re4posses of the public sector organisations in managing these incidents are analysed in this
report. The role of the organisations in disaster managements also included here.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
P5 Principles of effective emergency incident responses................................................................5
P6 Recovery stage for an emergency incident.................................................................................6
M3 Need for debriefs and future planning......................................................................................8
P7 Identification of emergency incident examples..........................................................................9
M4 Roles of public services in real-world emergency incidents...................................................11
D2 Actions taken by collaborative agency and lesson learned......................................................12
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15
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Introduction
The public services organisations provide emergency reliefs and duties to the people of the UK
and make them aware about the natural disasters and create effective arrangements to solve it. In
the present report, principles of emergency incident responses are analysed along with the
recovery stage of an incident. For this purpose, a public service organisation of the UK, British
Red Cross is selected that provide emergency services and responsibility of the public sectors in
different situations are analysed here.
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P5 Principles of effective emergency incident responses
The principles of emergency responses are,
Anticipation
Risk identification and analysis is essential for anticipation and managing of independent, direct
and indirect emergency consequences.
Preparedness
All individuals and organisations, which have a role in emergency recovery, should be prepared
properly and they should have clear responsibilities (COPPOLA, 2015).
Subsidiary
Decisions are required to be taken at the lowest appropriate level with cooperation with the
highest necessary level. Local agencies should help to create response for recovery.
Direction
Clear Strategic aim and objectives are required for the public service organisations as they can
understand and agree to provide recovery effort and become focused.
Integration
Coordination within different level of organisations such as local and national is required to
provide integrated and coherent emergency recovery services.
Information
Appropriate information management system should used by the recovery organisations to
verify, assess and disseminate information. It is necessary to make quick decisions and help the
people aware of disasters to ensure their safety.
Cooperation
Positive engagement in the recovery services and information sharing between agencies at all
levels are required along with flexibility (Phillips et al., 2016).
Continuity
Arrangement of recovery should exist in the organizational functions and they should use
familiar ways of working to provide emergency services to a faster tempo and more testing
circumstances.
Multi-agency framework should be maintained by the organisations to increase cooperation
between several public sector and government agencies for creating social welfare (HUNT and
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GREAVES, 2017). Strategy is taken based on multi-agency law enforcement. For providing
emergency recovery services, Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and Contingency Planning
Regulations 2005 are required to be followed by the organisations to improve the services by
providing detail to the emergency planning regime. It segments responsibilities of the private
service sectors into category 1 and category 2. Gold–silver–bronze command structure provides
multi-agency command that uses major operations. Science and Technical Advice Cell (STAC)
provide guidance to local respondents within the multi-agency services (Gil-Rivas and Kilmer,
2016). Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG) provides strategic directions of the emergency and
provides command, coordination and control in emergency situation.
P6 Recovery stage for an emergency incident
Recovery stage involves rebuilding, restoring and rehabilitating and the categories of recovery
are humanitarian, economic, environmental and infrastructure (Gil-Rivas and Kilmer, 2016). The
organisations can improve the emergency recovery services by undertaking the command and
control of Strategic Coordinating Group (SCG). British Red Cross has provided emergency
services in natural disaster incident, Hurricane Irma.
There are four steps of emergency management such as mitigation, preparedness, response and
recovery. In the recovery stage, actions have been taken to return a community to normal
conditions after disaster by repairing physical, social and economic damages. Recovery efforts
are concerned with rebuilding destroyed property, reemployment and repairing of essential
infrastructure. Red Cross used Park model to provide recovery to the disaster (Huang et al.,
2015). Humanitarian agencies build resilience in the communities during hazards events. Safety
and well being depend on ability and cope of rearranging the life of the people of the UK and
mitigation actions or preparedness plans need to be created by the authorities of British Red
cross.
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Figure 1: Park model of Red Cross
(Source: British Red Cross, 2019)
In the case of London fire incident, relief fund of British Red Cross has supported the people
who have been left injured, homeless and bereaved. The fire has been caused from electric fault.
The money that has been raised has been given to the people who have been affected by the fire.
London Grenfell tower fire has raised £7.3 million and £6.9 million has been transferred to
London Emergency Trust. More than 600 British Red Cross volunteers have supported over
1700 people and 40,000 boxes of goods have been donated to the people (British Red Cross,
2019). It has also been identified that British Red Cross has donated to the affected people of the
Hurricane Ophelia.
Recovery Coordinating Group is required for emergency response and recovery that is required
for transition between the response and recovery phase. They suggest structures for managing
recovery. They gather information from London Resilience Partnership. It is effective for
determine initial Recovery strategy. Opportunity of regeneration is required for reducing
terrorism and it helps to create benefits and costs for increase economic and social system
(Yumashev et al., 2017). It reduces corruption and incorporate legislations and economic
resources to improve relationship between culture and society.
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Figure 2: Activities of Recovery Coordinating Group
(Source: Yumashev et al., 2017)
M3 Need for debriefs and future planning
Single-agency and interagency debriefing
Individual agencies have existing arrangement to facilitate debriefing of incidents, organised
events and training initiatives. Single agent and multi-agency management in emergency
response are required for managing disasters in the UK. The framework of the disaster
management structure identifies various tiers of single agency and multi-agency management for
emergency response (Matthias and Brown, 2016). The agencies develop own response plans and
procedures. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat which is based on Cabinet office of the UK is
responsible for civil emergency planning in England and Wales. The government partnership
devolved administrations and key stakeholders to enhance ability of the UK government to
prepare for and recover the emergencies. Department of National Defence (DND) is also
responsible for single agency disaster management.
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Comprehensive record keeping
A comprehensive record includes the decision and actions taken for all events, decision and
reasons behind decisions. Each organisation maintains their own records and the documents are
stored in routine housekeeping arrangement (Moran et al., 2017). The role of STAC is to monitor
high level objectives and immediate priorities and take arrangement based on the commands of
disaster management. They ensure practical division of effort to overcome immediate problems
and avoid duplication. They maintain a written record of decisions and reasons of decisions that
are made for recovering disaster.
Honest and open debriefs and continuous evaluation
Honest and open debrief is the ground rule of undertaking organizational debriefing. Debrief
should pursue personal, group and organisational learning and understanding. It should respect
all rights of individuals as well as it should be consistent with professional responsibilities.
Debrief should be kept confidential and it should be ensured that the staffs of disaster
management organisations can share their experiences openly in debrief (Jeong et al., 2016).
Crisis intervention strategies are required to be adopted to ensure public safety and quick disaster
response that can help them to continuously improve disaster management services.
Recommendations
Planning for natural disaster can be improved through reviewing disaster management
operations. A disaster plan for each disaster is required and the disaster management organisation
such a British Red Cross required preparing the UK community for natural disaster and
technological faculty. Stress debriefing can be structured based on group meetings and
discussions to prepare the local community to get rid of traumatic situation quickly.
P7 Identification of emergency incident examples
There are some examples, in which disasters are managed effectively and involvement of non-
statutory agencies is identified. Statutory and non- statutory public services area also included in
the disaster management (Bongiovanni et al., 2016). Non-statutory public services such as Red
Cross, RNLI and St John’s Ambulance are included in the disaster management. The UK based
incidents are Pearson Green terrorist attack, UK floods and Shoreham Airshow plane crash.
International Emergency incidents have been Hurricane Irma and Maria in 2017, Bastille Day
terrorist attack (2016), Paris terror attack 2015 and 2017 and Ebola (2014-2015).
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UK based incidents
In Pearson Green terrorist attack in 2017, bucket bomb has stroke underground train of London.
National state level has been raised to critical in this incident and mass casualties have been
revived as 29 people have been injured. Government’s Cobra emergency committee has
increased the level of alert. Significant treatment has been provided to the injured people after
terror attack and seven persons have been arrested based on section 41 of Terrorisms Act 2000
(Assets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2019).
Shoreham Airshow plane crash has killed 11 people and 16 people have been injured. Immediate
medical treatment has been provided to the people who have been injured. Civil Aviation
Regulations 1996 needs to follow for safe flying. Flying Control Committee has identified the
issues and it has been noticed that CAA authorisation has not been followed and FDD has not
been aware of the fact. It has been investigated by police and safety recommendations have been
provided by CAA (GOV.UK, 2019).
International incidents
In the Paris terror attack, emergency and medical response planning has been created for mass
causality terror attack. In this attack, FEMA has raised funding for the terrorist attack. The
government of Lower Franconia has provided emergency pastoral care and some related
stepwise medical treatment is provided to the people of the Paris.
UK government has also taken action for Hurricane Irma and provide support to the people who
have been affected due to it. FCO Rapid Deployment Teams of the UK has provided relief funds
to the eight locations such as British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Anguilla, Puerto
Rico, Guadalupe, Barbados, St Maarten and Curacao with the support of Red Cross. United
Nations General Assembly (UNGA) also has helped to make decisions for present and future
support of relief of Irma. DFID has also distributed and Red Cross has appealed up to £3 million
for the UK people (GOV.UK, 2019). European Union (EU) has tightened the legislations related
to terrorism and increases enquiry related reform. The authorities of National Intelligence
Council (CNR) have enhanced flexible and reactive force to reduce future possibilities of
terrorism related issues.
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M4 Roles of public services in real-world emergency incidents
In case of real world emergency accidents such as floods and earthquakes, the public services
prove to be the backbone for better treatment of the victims. The basic manifestations of a public
service for the real world emergency accidents are as,
Pre emergency warnings
These warnings help the people in the vicinity to clear the area which is affected by the
emergency accident at the earliest. This step generally leads to saving a lot of lives.
Tending to the medical needs as soon as possible
The medical requirements such as requisite amount of medicine and other sources of medical
resources such as doctors and nurses can treat the victims without delay (Beine and Parsons,
2015).
Introduction of better safety as well as health services
The better health and safety services ensures that the victims overcome the shock and fear which
is associated with a major emergency accident such as forest fires or earthquakes.
Provision of emergency shelters
The emergency shelters provide temporary homage to the victims who have lost their property
and residential arena. It provides them with adequate amount of time to arrange a residential
apartment (Reuter and Spielhofer, 2017).
Provision of emergency food and water supplies
Arrangement of requisite amount of food and water supplies provides nourishment to the victims
which are essential for them to overcome the shock.
Communication through social networking sites such as facebook and instagram
The communication made by the public services through social media helps to spread ten needs
of the incident at a faster rate. This initiates more help in the form of monetary fund as well as
other arrangements.
Therefore, it can be stated that attainment of all the objectives are essential for providing a sound
resilience in case of emergency accidents. The public service organisations and government
agencies act collaboratively to managing disaster in the UK.
In case of British Red Cross, it has been witnessed that the organisation has tied up with several
fire brigade units which are responsible for providing assistance in case of fires. In the Grenwall
Tower Fire, the organisation made an arrangement for 630 volunteers who have provided support
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to the 1700 people involved in the fire incident. The volunteers also provided moral as well as
emotional support to the bereaved families who have been affected due to the fire. The British
Red Cross made an arrangement for 200 tons of food and other resources to the victims for their
survival. Moreover, by virtue of the generosity of the public, the British Red Cross have been
able to collect a colossal amount of £7.3 million by emergency communication through social
media. This fund vehemently helped the uplift of the victims to a great extent.
D2 Actions taken by collaborative agency and lesson learned
Collaboration and actions taken for real-world emergency
Interaction between the emergency disaster planning and other services are required to provide
quick response and maintain safety of the people. As it is a social process, it requires public
support for meeting the requirements of preparedness, initial planning and partition widely.
Support of the public is required to guide recovery and reconstruction. Renewable energy
utilisation, climate change, population growth and wealth imbalance can create issues in
maintaining disasters (Rutkow et al., 2017). Statutory and non-statutory public services are also
required for improving disaster management. Statutory public services are bounded with the law
which is not observed for non-statutory services. Non-statutory service namely Red Cross has
provided an effective services to the people of the UK and raised funds to manager disaster for
Grenfell Tower fire of London and Hurricane Irma.
British Red Cross receives grant from the UK government. As per Civil Contingencies Act 2004,
guidance of non-statutory public services is required for the public health. In an emergency,
coroner is responsible for identifying fatalities and cause of the incident as well as the
circumstances of death. The role of coroner is defined by statute and conditioner is supported by
deputy. Collaboration with the government and non-statutory services is required for increasing
accountability and identifying areas of improvement to reduce weak performance (Doran and
Latifi, 2016). Collaborative approach for service planning and delivery is required for increasing
federal funding and measuring effectiveness of management programs.
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