As part of Better Care Together’s staff engagement activities, Stuart Hosking-Durn, the Emergency Planning lead from University Hospitals Morecambe Bay hosted the training day, which gave attendees the opportunity to network, share lessons learnt from the flooding and improve their current business continuity plans.
Jenny Murgatroyd from Hill Croft Nursing Home said: “The training day was brilliant and informative; we now know what direction to go in.”
Everyone was brought closer together by sharing experiences of the December floods which involved both discussing concerns, for example failure of communication systems, loss of power and the challenge of ensuring that the people they care for were kept warm, fed and received all appropriate care.
There were many heart-warming stories of staff going out of their way to ensure that their residents were kept safe and well during the floods and the power cuts that followed. The group were given the chance to test their current business continuity plans when faced by a variety of different scenarios which could potentially provide a risk to delivering care in difficult circumstances.
These highlighted key aspects which the group will now act on such as maintaining up to date contact lists for more effective communication between organisations which will act as a source of help in future.
A follow up event will take place in six months’ time where staff will have the opportunity to review and re-test their amended plans and improvements when confronted with a variety of new scenarios.