Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR)

Within the NHS, work on planning and preparing for incident response, and for reducing the impact of disruptive events, is known as "Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response" or EPRR. Further details on the wider NHS requirements for EPRR can be found on the NHS England website.

The Trust's Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO) is responsible for the day to day work of ensuring the Trust is prepared to respond to incidents.  They are supported by a dedicated Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPPR) Team which is responsible for producing and maintaining the Trust's EPRR risk management, business continuity and continuous improvement systems, it's EPRR-related policies and procedures, and its EPRR training and exercising programme. 

The EPRR Team consists of specialist staff trained in emergency planning, business continuity and incident response.  Alongside maintaining oversight of the Trust's EPRR Programme, the Team is also responsible for coordinating the Trust's 24/7 incident response and escalation process; and for ensuring the Trust is properly joined up with other responding organisations across the health sector and wider civil response mechanism.  

The EPRR Team can be contacted by e-mailing EPRR.Team@mpft.nhs.uk

The Trust’s exercise programme sits as part of the EPRR work plan. Its purpose is to support the embedding of training; and to test business continuity /incident response plans, arrangements and resources.

The Trust is required to undertake the following exercises:

• 6 months: Communications test.
• 12 months: Table top exercise.
• 3 years:  Table top exercise 
• 3 years: Live play exercise

Communications test

This test checks whether the organisation can contact key staff and other NHS and partner organisations, 24/7. Tests may be with or without warning and are scheduled to occur both in and out of hours. They include tests of telephone, email, paging and other communications methods in use such as ResilienceDirect.

Table top exercise

Table top exercises bring together relevant staff (and partners if appropriate), to discuss the response (or specific element of a response) to an incident. By working through a particular scenario, the group can validate new or revised plans while developing their own skills and understanding.

Live play exercise  

The live play exercise is a live test of arrangements and includes the operational and practical elements of an incident response – for example, undertaking a mass evacuation.

If the Trust has to activate its Incident Response Plan (IRP) for a live incident, it can dispense with the need to run a separate live play exercise provided any lessons are identified and an action plan developed.

All NHS- funded organisations are expected to actively participate with exercises run by multi-agency partners where relevant to health.

Command post exercise

The command post exercise (CPX) tests the operational element of command and control. The Trust must set up the Incident Coordination Centre (ICC) and test equipment, facilities and processes. Within MPFT, the CPX is usually incorporated into other types of exercise, such as the communications exercise or live play exercises.

The Trust also takes part in both the Staffordshire Resilience Forum (SRF) and Integrated Care Board communications and activation exercises in order to test its arrangements for communication and information flow with multi-agency partners.

As with live play exercises, should the Trust activate its ICC in response to a live incident, it is not required to run a separate test.

The functionality of equipment in the main and back-up ICCs are maintained by the EPRR Team and tested quarterly.

Teams are expected to organise and run their own business continuity exercises (guidance and templates are available from the Trust's Business Continuity App). Trust-wide tests and exercises, or involvement in external tests and exercises, are coordinated by the EPRR Team on behalf of the AEO.

The Trust’s approach to incident and emergency response is based on the principle of continuity. This means that the way in which we respond is grounded within the Trust’s existing functions and familiar ways of working - so the skills and competencies staff develop as part of their normal operational duties are, for the most part, also applicable to their role in an incident or emergency.

There are, however, some situations where the necessary response requires an additional set of skills to ensure people react in a safe and effective way. A good example of this is the mandatory fire safety training which all staff receive, and the Business Continuity Management training available to all staff on the Trust's Business Continuity App

There are also some specific “EPRR” roles which are only activated in business continuity, critical or major incidents:

• Strategic Commander (Gold)
• Tactical Commander (Silver)
• Operational Manager (Bronze)
• Incident Communications Lead
• Loggist

Training for all of these EPRR roles is based on the National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Civil Protection and is delivered/coordinated by the Trust’s EPRR Team. Further information on training and exercises is available from the EPRR Team.

Staff undertaking any of the EPRR roles listed are expected to have completed a Training Needs Assessment (TNA), benchmarking their skills against the NOS standards for their role. They are responsible for reviewing their EPRR TNA at least annually as part of the standard appraisal and continued professional development system.

The format of training will reflect the nature of the subject area and usually be delivered through e-learning or classroom based sessions, with the exception of communications tests/exercises (run remotely); and live play exercises (likely to run in the normal working environment). In addition, the EPRR Team runs shorter “Lunch and Learn” sessions on Teams to help raise awareness of particular issues, policies and procedures.

From time to time, key staff will be given the opportunity to attend specialist training – details of which will be shared internally by the EPRR team.