Management of Public Health Incidents: Guidance on the Roles and Responsibilities of NHS led Incident Management Teams - October 2011 (Updated July 2013)

ANNEX J

Criteria for evaluation of incident management

Incident Preparedness

• Incident plans have been reviewed annually by NHS Board's and their partners, especially Local Authorities.
• Incident plans dealing with a major exposure to hazard e.g. food, waterborne, HAI, chemical and radiological incidents have been tested within a 3-year cycle i.e. utilised in an actual major outbreak or tested in an exercise. Such testing should include dealing with the deliberate release of hazardous agents
• Incident plans include up to date contacts for liaison out of hours, available expertise and possible IMT members - as related to incident, whether full members, co-opted or advisory level.

• Incident plans include an aide-memoir of the outline of the role of IMTs.

• The NHS Board has documented systems and agreed criteria for being notified of and detecting potential or actual incidents.

Incident management

• In the event of an incident, the NHS Board has undertaken an initial risk assessment and recorded
  − whether there is a significant risk to public health.
  − scale of problem
  − severity of problem
  − possible cause of incident/outbreak
  − initial actions to be taken and why.
• The IMT has kept records of decisions made about incident control measures and documented:
  − whether these measures have been applied and
  − if not, the reason why
  − if yes, by whom, when and where they have been carried out.
  − any further action arising from above.
• The IMT has reviewed the impact of control measures at each IMT meeting and documented its view on this.
• The IMT has reviewed the risk to public health arising from the incident and the likely overall impact of control measures on it.
  
• The IMT Chair has ensured that there is a check maintained on the above aspects of incident management and that this is recorded in the IMT minutes.
• The IMT Chair has regularly reported on the incident to relevant senior management of the local authority and NHS Board.
• The IMT has agreed a single press spokesman and press officer who have regularly reported to the IMT on the tone and content of communications and responses to them.

After the incident

• The IMT Chair has submitted the final IMT report to the NHS Board or NHS Board committee
• The IMT Chair has forwarded the report to relevant organisations with responsibility for taking forward its recommendations.