Immediate Actions & Emergency Response Plans

Explore common problems/challenges and best practice tips related to various phases of the incident investigation process and concerns regarding Site Actions and Emergency Response Plans.

Incident Investigation - Actions and Emergency Response Plans

While positive thinking is great, and everyone likes to think that their company won’t have a serious incident, it is critical that organisations are prepared for the worst-case scenario.
Immediately following an incident, there are certain measures that should take place at a local site level in order to assist people, control hazards, and, as far as possible, try to limit the extent of the event. Many of these actions take place as part of a site’s Emergency Response Plan, which is a systematic response to an incident with the main focus being mitigation of the event on people and the environment (e.g. preservation of life, the rescue of personnel, treatment of injured personnel and transport as necessary to medical facilities, containment of spills etc.)
While the Immediate Emergency Response is a separate phase of an incident investigation from the Immediate Actions of the investigation team, the two are linked, and Incident Investigators need to be cognisant of what has happened at occurrence sites prior to their arrival to conduct the investigation.
Too often, when our Investigators are called in to help organisations, they find themselves not only investigating the actual incident but also advising the company on deficiencies associated with their site preparedness and emergency response plan.

Common Challenges

Some of the common challenges we often find in relation to the Site Immediate Response include:

Site personnel are not aware of their responsibilities immediately following an incident.
There is confusion and a lack of knowledge/currency about who should activate/coordinate the emergency response.
Contact names/roles/numbers of nominated responders are not current.
Notifications to Management and relevant agencies (e.g. Regulatory Agencies) are not made in a timely manner.
There is a lack of detail recorded after the initial / emergency response, particularly in relation to personnel involved, equipment used, effectiveness of emergency response plans, etc.

Immediate Actions and Emergency Response Plans

Best Practice Tips

Some very simple tips and actions can assist in mitigating the challenges, including:

Desk-top practice runs scheduled at set intervals to provide context, familiarity, and practice, particularly reinforcing:
- Immediate actions expected by site personnel
- The critical issue of site assessment is to ensure the scene is safe
- Investigation team appointments
Notification Protocols
Incident scene preservation, observation, and recording.
Contact details for the emergency response list should be reviewed at least once per month or as personnel / organisational changes occur.
Training is provided to site personnel on their roles/responsibilities in relation to incident response, notifications, immediate actions, etc.
Protocols are established defining the types of incidents for which normal operations should cease immediately, and incident sites should be barricaded to protect the scene until Investigators arrive.