How do we carry on?

#Update – 7 patients in total have been transported to the Queensland Children’s Hospital, Redcliffe Hospital & Caboolture Hospitals after a vehicle & multi-pedestrian incident in #Caboolture. 3 patients serious with significant leg injuries, 4 others stable, 3 with leg injuries.

Queensland Ambulance (@QldAmbulance) March 27, 2019

Business continuity and resilience sound like those things people say when they don’t have problems. You know how it is, you tell your friend about an issue and they tell you not to worry, and help with encouraging remarks such as “it isn’t a big deal”. You talk to the business owner across the street about what they’d do if the street was closed due to an accident. “That won’t happen around here, everyone is a safe driver.” they say. “And if it did, we’d just get on with it. Be resilient, you know?”.

We are all human so we are all at some stage in our lives likely to believe that “it won’t happen to us”. The reality is nowadays that the risk profile has increased. More people. More cars. More supply and demand. But has the infrastructure kept up? Is there enough enforcement to keep people in line? Not in every area, that’s for sure.

Business continuity is all about planning how you will continue to operate when something happens. It may be something that you do, or cause to happen, or it may be something outside of your control. The thing is, when it happens, are you ready?

If you take the above scenario from a recent incident in QLD, a father going to collect his child from school mistook the brake for the accelerator and hit 6 people before crashing into some parked cars and a wall. Upon arrival of emergency services the scene appeared chaotic – people were scared, confused, angry. Not sure how to react. It drew attention from inside and outside the school.

“No-one knew what was going on. It was basically chaos.”

When something happens that we weren’t expecting, we are initially confused or scared of the situation. Humans enter fight or flight mode – do I need to defend myself or do I need to get out of here? This simple scenario is complicated these days with the use of technology – do I need to stay and film this?

Staff that have a clear response plan are able to activate it right away. We need to enter our continuity plan and get things back on track again, or, have systems running until they can be.

Looking at the end of the article, we are able to see that schools seem to have a plan to provide assistance to those impacted by incidents to help things return to normal as soon as possible.

Quick Action Points for Business Continuity

1. Prevent – Reduce or remove risks.
2. Prepare – Take steps prior to incidents occurring, such as a risk assessment, staff training, etc.
3. Respond – Implement the ‘critical action points’ plan.
4. Recover – Minimise disruption, communicate and get back to normal.

You can also find a free one-page list I’ve created for you with some quick tips on bouncing back after an incident. Go here.

Want to find out more about Critical Action Points and being prepared?
Check out our training services for more!

Read the full news article on the above incident here.

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