Preparing for Emergencies Guidance

Appendix 10 - Glossary of Terms

All Hazards Approach - Concentrating on consequences rather than causes, allows a process of generic planning which can be adapted readily to fit to a wide range of issues around response and recovery.

Business Continuity Management - A management process that helps manage risks to the smooth running of an organisation or deliver of a service, ensuring that it can operate to the extent required in the event of a disruption.

Business Continuity - Strategic and tactical capability of an organisation to plan for and respond to incidents and business disruptions in order to continue business operations at an acceptable predefined level.

Capability - A demonstrable ability to respond to and recover from a particular threat or hazard.

Category 1 Responder - A person or body listed in Part 1 or Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Civil Contingencies Act. These bodies are likely to be at the core of the response to most emergencies. As such, they are subject to the full range of civil protection duties in the Act.

CBRN - Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear

Civil Contingencies/Civil Contingencies Act - Risks to civilian health, safety and property from emergencies as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act (2004).

Community Risk Register - A register communicating the assessment of risks within a Regional Resilience Partnership area, which is developed and published as a basis for informing local communities and directing civil protection workstreams.

Competences - Competences include the knowledge, judgement, skills, energy, experience, and motivation required to respond adequately to the demands of one’s professional responsibilities.

Decontamination - Removal or reduction of hazardous materials to lower the risk of further harm to victims and/or cross contamination.

Disaster - Emergency (usually but not exclusively of natural cause) causing, or threatening to cause, widespread and serious disruption to community life through death, injury, and/or damage to property and/or the environment.

Emergency (CCA definition) - An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the UK, the environment of a place in the UK, or the security of the UK or of a place in the UK.

Emergency Powers - Last-resort option for responding to the most serious of emergencies where existing powers are insufficient, and additional powers are enacted under part 2 of the Civil Contingencies Act (2004) and elsewhere.

Emergency Preparedness - The extent to which emergency planning enables the effective and efficient prevention, reduction, control, and mitigation of, and response to emergencies.

Exercise - A simulation designed to validate organisations’ capability to manage incidents and emergencies. Specifically, exercises will seek to validate training undertaken and the procedures and systems within emergency or business continuity plans.

Hazmat - Abbreviation for hazardous materials, although it is commonly used in relation to procedures, equipment and incidents involving hazardous materials. HAZMAT incidents are not treated as terrorist incidents yet can require a similar NHS response.

Health EPRR - Scottish Government Health Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Division

Health Risk States - Section 14 (7) of the Public Health etc. (Scotland) Act 2008 defines a ‘health risk state’ as (a) a highly pathogenic infection; or (b) any contamination, poison or other hazard which is a significant risk to public health.

Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974 - Primary piece of legislation covering occupational health and safety in the United Kingdom. The Health and Safety Executive is responsible for enforcing the Act and a number of other Acts and Statutory Instruments relevant to the working environment.

Incident Management Team (IMT) - Event or situation that requires a response from the emergency services or other responders.

Integrated Emergency Management (IEM) - Multi-agency approach to emergency management entailing five key activities – assessment, prevention, preparation, response, and recovery. See Preparing Scotland.

Internal incidents - An organisation may be affected by its own internal major incident (e.g. fire, equipment failure, violent crime) or by an external incident (e.g. utilities failure) that impairs its ability to function normally, impacting on staff morale and public confidence. These incidents should be covered in a Business Continuity Plan. However, where there is no resolution in the short term, the result would be the declaration of a major incident.

Lockdown - The process of controlling the movement and access – both entry and exit – of people (NHS staff, patients, and visitors) around a site or building/area in response to an identified risk, threat or hazard that might impact upon the security of patients, staff, and assets or, indeed, the capacity of that facility to continue to operate. A lockdown is achieved through a combination of physical security measures and the deployment of security personnel.

Looked-After (children) - Under the Children (Scotland) Act 1995, ‘looked after children’ are defined as those in the care of their local authority.

Loggist - An individual responsible for keeping logs of an incident, including what happened and when, a timeline of responses, decisions or actions made and by whom.

Major incident scenarios - Cloud on the horizon: Where an incident in one place may impact on others afterwards. Preparatory action is needed in response to an evolving threat elsewhere, even perhaps overseas, such as a major chemical or nuclear release, a dangerous epidemic, or an armed conflict. Slow burner: Where a problem creeps up gradually, such as occurs in a developing infectious disease epidemic. There is no clear starting point for the major incident and the point at which an outbreak becomes ‘major’ may only be clear in retrospect, e.g. Pandemic Flu. Long term resilience or business continuity of NHS Services is a key issue. Headline news: Where a wave of public or media alarm ensues over a health issue, such as a reaction to a perceived threat. This may create a major incident for health services even if the fears prove unfounded. The issues itself may be minor in terms of actual risk to the population. It is the urgent need to manage information that creates the major incident. Big bang: A health service major incident is typically triggered by a sudden major transport or industrial accident. What may not be so obvious at first, however, are the wider implications. A major incident may build slowly from a series of smaller incidents such as traffic/ transport accidents or explosions. Also see CBRN, HAZMAT, Internal Incidents, and Mass Casualties

Mass Casualty Incident - An incident (or series of incidents) causing casualties on a scale that is beyond the normal resources of the emergency services.

Mutual Aid - An agreement between organisations, within the same sector or across sectors and across boundaries, to help with additional recourse during an emergency.

Preparedness - Process of preparing to deal with known risks and unforeseen events or situations that have potential to result in an emergency.

Recovery - The process of rebuilding, restoring, and rehabilitating the community following an emergency.