General Practice: preparing for emergencies

Is your practice emergency ready for Summer? General practices are vulnerable to an array of potentially devastating emergencies and disasters of both natural and manmade origin. These disasters cannot be predicted so it is important that primary care is prepared for emergencies that may affect infrastructure and systems, supplies and services and patient demand. Being prepared will help, maximise outcomes for your staff, community and business. 

To meet the RACGP’s Standards for general practices (5th edition) practices must maintain an emergency response plan for unexpected events, such as natural disasters, pandemic diseases, or unplanned absence of clinical team members. RACGP - Criterion C3.3 – Emergency response plan This plan should be reviewed, updated and tested regularly, for example by running a simulation (desktop review) with all practice staff. 

Resources

Emergency Response Planning Guide: How to create an Emergency Response Plan: RACGP - Emergency response planning

Emergency planning tools and information: RACGP - Managing emergencies and pandemics

Webinar: Preparing your practice for extreme weather events RACGP - Preparing your practice for extreme weather events

This webinar highlights the health effects of extreme weather events and equips general practitioners with knowledge of how to implement effective disaster planning.

Learning outcomes

1. Discuss common weather events driven by climate change impacting general practices and their patients.
2. Outline effective disaster management strategies to reduce the impacts of extreme weather events