Management of Public Health Incidents: Guidance on the Roles and Responsibilities of NHS led Incident Management Teams - October 2011

ANNEX F

Proposed activities of the HPN in relation to the implementation of the Framework for the Management of Public Health Incidents

Introduction

The HPN was conceived to improve health protection in Scotland, by bringing together those working in this field to share good practice in a network. As such, the HPN is the appropriate platform to support further development of a number of actions suggested in the Management of Public Health Incidents guidance.

Proposal

The HPN will support the implementation of the key principles of Incident Management (as listed in paragraph 27) that relate to education, promotion of best practice and curatorship of the reports (paragraph 32).

The HPN is proposing to take forward the above by:

a) making sure an appropriate framework to support effective incident management is in place, monitored and regularly reviewed by:

• developing the system to produce IMT reports as indicated in the Management of Public Health Incidents guidance so that NHS Boards and other agencies agree on what is required to report and is of the highest quality possible
• developing a quality criteria against which incident reports can be assessed (e.g. review and adaptation of the ORION criteria and with other projects on this direction led by ECDC)
• making sure there is an appropriate and fit-for-purpose system to log, store and share reports across Scotland;

b) Supporting the work of the Health Protection Education Advisory Group in relation to incident management workforce education development relating;

c) Making sure there are regular forums to help facilitate sharing and learning from experience.