Preparing for Emergencies- Guidance For Health Boards in Scotland

1. Introduction

1.1 This document is an Annex to the NHSScotland Guidance Preparing For Emergencies.

1.2 The Equality Duty requires Health Boards and other public bodies to consider the needs of all individuals, including staff, when developing policy, designing and delivering services.

1.3 This Annex summarises public sector duties under Equalities and Human Rights legislation. It highlights specific issues for those concerned with resilience-planning to consider in the process of preparing for emergencies. It contains checklists to assist resilience planners in the process of assessing and understanding the impact of their organisations major incident plans and responses to various scenarios on people protected by the Equalities and Human Rights legislation.

1.4 It is important that Health Boards understand how different people will be affected by their activities when responding to major incidents so that services are appropriate to meet the needs of different people.

1.5 The information in this Annex has been compiled with the assistance of NHS Health Scotland and The Scottish Human Rights Commission.