Running head: EMERGENCY PLANNING IN THE UK PUBLIC SERVICES

EMERGENCY PLANNING IN THE UK PUBLIC SERVICES

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Medium Term Impact of Emergency Situations

Emergency responses and interventions are focused on delivering essential facilities are

always unique depending on the situation under assessment. As emergency response groups are

at the forefront in leading for interventions in case of a catastrophe, the public has a role to play

at each local community level. Emergency situations have helped the locals to learn how to

mitigate and strengthen the effects of conditions that require urgent attention. Responses have led

to enhance the capacity of the personnel and the public involved in intervening in community

response (Yáñez-Arancibia et al., 2014). Community response teams have been formed which

educate residents on their preparedness in cases when disaster strikes equipping them with

disaster response skills. Pieces of training have been conducted at the local level as a means of

creating jointly available quality assistance when disaster looms. Considering the effects

disasters have had in communities, community reserve volunteers have been seen applying for

vacancies in UK emergency response organizations to help the locals in case of a crisis.

Medium impacts on the public personnel in case of emergency situations will include

establishing strategies based on the lessons learned from the response and finding out ways of

recovering from the situation. Civil service personnel in the UK have identified an emergency

preparedness plan which contains the guidelines and duties that are executed in case of an

emergency. The occurrence of crisis situations has helped in designing and improving the

robustness of the emergency response plan. The public service outlines the guidelines to include:

keeping a shared framework in various emergency response agencies at the community level,

having a shared role at the local level during response interventions and holding a standard

reference frame for all teams taking part in the response action. The effect of a crisis has helped
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in perfecting the response and recovery strategies in the public service to reflect on the

circumstances.

Impacts of crisis situations on the environment have brought in exposure to health risks to

humans in a variety of ways depending on the nature of the case. Environmental hazards have

been seen to cause detrimental effects on the environment which later turns to affect the human

environment during crisis events. Emergency situations such mudslides, earthquakes, floods have

caused stress to the human-environment relationship through the damage they do to the

environmental structures. Transport hitches are common in cases of flooding situations which

may bring up shortages in response personnel. Vector breeding areas have far going effects on

environmental health services depending on how worse the situation becomes.

Long-Term Impact of Emergency Situations

It is common to have difficulties which have long-term effects in the community after a

disaster has struck. The long-term problems that trail on in the community may sometimes be

unclearly identified considering that the tragedy hit a long time ago. Some communities have

become stronger in the long term after a disaster in dealing with issues of disaster response.

However, some of the adverse reactions will be held and remembered in a community depending

on the experience the locals had with the emergency situation. Memories of a disaster will often

come back in case another crisis strikes – it may be due to delayed improvement from the painful

feelings of the earlier tragedy. A community may again find further situation hard to handle

depending on the nature of response mechanisms set after a disaster has ended (Detels et at.,

2915). As a result of these situations, the public service has encouraged the community to have

locals who are equipped in emergency response for quick intervention in case of a crisis.
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Some disasters posed severe long-term challenges to the environment – most of the hard-

won gains in preserving and maintaining a conducive environment for social, economic and

human developments are drained away. Significant problems are then birthed out as the

environment struggles to restore its former state – some may include environmental health

challenges, global warming, infrastructural hitches as well as ecological degradation and

imbalance. The environment is often left more vulnerable in the long-term after a disaster which

threatens human dependence on the environment.

Strengths and Areas for Improvement

As the government works to ensure that all agencies are fully equipped for emergency

response, there is a need to test the emergency plans with all types of emergencies. Training

more staff who are located near communities to be involved in emergency responses and

interventions will significantly improve on the programs. Some areas have been identified as

disaster-prone locations – making sure that emergency response teams are available for

immediate reactions will save the locals from severe effects associated with extreme disasters.

Planning for exercises with the locals will guarantee the workability of an emergency

plan when disaster looms (Hammond & Zimmermann 2012). Sometimes emergency plans are set

but with fewer involvements of the communities and hence less awareness. Investing more in

emergency response plans will guarantee the success of the procedures established in a recovery

plan and the intensiveness of the pieces of training to be conducted. More focus on live exercises

will create a clear picture to the locals and build confidence and morale in responding to disaster

situations. Recruiting more volunteers from the locations prone to disasters and giving them

appropriate training will underpin the public service preparedness to emergency situations.
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Vital Elements of Different Emergency Plans

Current emergency response plans define the phases of the plan to be Preparedness,

mitigation, recovery, and response (Parker & Handmer 2013) Mitigation includes the activities

that are set in place to prevent an emergency from taking place. This may consist of reducing the

devastating impacts of extreme emergencies. Mitigation plans take place before a disaster and

after the response. Having emergency Insurance that protects loss of property is one of the

mitigation efforts. Preparedness includes the methods for the rescue and response operations to

save lives and evacuation plans which take place before a disaster occurs. Response actions are

employed to save lives where the preparedness plans are set into motion. Responses take place

during the disaster situation are focused on preventing more damages when a crisis strikes. In the

recovery phase, actions are taken to restore the status to normality which may include making

repairs for settlement after the emergency.

Emergency Response Improvements Recommended

Withholding information from the public would be a wrong idea considering that the

locals are the first target when disasters strike. Making sure there is clear communication

between the public and the personnel making sure they are the same page in case of an

emergency (Dadson, 2012). Today’s information leaks out through any means – sometimes

unauthentic – it would be of importance for the concerned organization to give reliable

communications to the public.

Sometimes technology will fail in case of a disaster, and the systems can go offline

preventing access to records in a health care response team. Improving on the hardware and
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software that will keep the response action operational earlier rather than waiting until a crisis

has happened will provide more alternatives to technological hitches.

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References

Dadson, E. (2012). Emergency planning and response for libraries, archives and museums. Facet

Publishing.

Detels, R., Gulliford, M., Karim, Q. A., & Tan, C. C. (Eds.). (2015). Oxford Textbook of Global

Public Health: The practice of public health. Vol. 3. Oxford University Press.

Hammond, B. B., & Zimmermann, P. G. (Eds.). (2012). Sheehy s Manual of Emergency Care-E-

Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Parker, D., & Handmer, J. (2013). Hazard management and emergency planning: perspectives in

Britain. Routledge. Chicago

Yáñez-Arancibia, A., Dávalos-Sotelo, R., & Day, J. W. (2014). Ecological Dimensions for

Sustainable Socio Economic Development (Vol. 64). WIT Press.