Module 1 – Prevention and preparedness | Disaster-specific information
Natural disasters
Over the coming decades, Australia will experience ongoing changes to its weather and climate, such as increased dangerous fire weather days, more short duration but intense heavy rainfall events and fewer but more intense and impactful tropical cyclones.3
You can help to protect your practice and reduce the amount of damage caused to its infrastructure and contents in the event of a natural disaster such as a bushfire, earthquake, cyclone or flood by implementing some practical safeguards.
Patient resource: Healthdirect’s Natural disasters webpage
Healthdirect’s webpage contains broken down information and guidance for the general public to assist them in preparing for, responding to and recovering from natural disasters. It contains information on where to seek further support and where to access information in different languages. Consider guiding patients to this resource to help them prepare physically and mentally for a natural disaster.
- remove excess rubbish, leaves, litter and shrubs from around your practice
- remove any unnecessary flammable materials (i.e., paint) from the premises
- clear the guttering surrounding your practice regularly
- repair damaged or missing tiles on the roof
- regularly cut any grass on the property and dispose of the trimmings each time
- ensure there is a wide firebreak around your practice
- remove any overhanging tree branches
- install an adequately serviced and functional fire alarm system that is appropriate for your space (e.g. sprinkler system and smoke alarms)
- install hoses long enough to reach around the outside of your practice
- fit seals around windows and doors to eliminate any gaps.
If your practice exists in an area that is prone to cyclones, it is likely that you will already have various protective measures in place due to local building standards and other requirements that will have been developed with cyclones in mind.
However, cyclones can cause serious damage and disruption, and it is important that your team remains vigilant as cyclone season approaches.
Your team can prepare for a cyclone by:
- checking in with your local council to access:
- flood plans or records to see if your business could be affected and what the impact might be,
- local flood arrangements for your area, and
- local disaster updates.
- researching your practice’s risk of being affected by storm tides,
- checking if your practice's infrastructure meets cyclone standards by contacting your local council or a professional builder/architect (if not up to standard, consider how to protect or temporarily relocate your practice),
- checking your emergency equipment such as your smoke and fire alarms,
- identifying where to relocate your loose equipment and vehicles (ensure vehicles are under solid shelter with handbrakes on and in gear),
- identifying where to store hazardous materials safely above ground level or off-site in case of flooding,
- keeping your outdoor areas neat and tidy and gutters clear,
- maintaining your practice’s roof and eaves regularly and fixing any loose guttering,
- sandbagging your premises for flooding if possible, and
- securing doors and windows with shutters, metal screens or tape on glass for added protection during high winds.
Patient resource: Health risks after a cyclone or flood
Healthdirect's contains helpful, broken-down guidance designed for general public use. It covers a range of information including the types of health risks that result from floods and cyclones, where people can seek support during and after either of these events and where to access information indifferent languages.
- Remove any heavy objects from shelves around your practice. You can store items on lower shelves if necessary.
- Secure or fasten any heavy equipment (especially expensive medical equipment) to a fixed surface or wall.
- Secure all wall-mounted objects (e.g. whiteboards, mounted TVs and clocks).
- Ensure all power boards are being used appropriately and not overloaded.
- Ensure that medications and small medical pieces of equipment are stored in safe places.
Floods impact both individuals and communities and have social, economic and environmental consequences. Australia is likely to see an increase in flood risk due to climate change, population growth and urbanisation. However, flood risk can be managed.
It should also be noted that floods can increase the transmission of water and vector borne communicable diseases.
You can prepare for a flood by:
- ensuring your practice has access to clean drinking water, should public water supplies become contaminated,
- considering replacing carpeted areas with alternative options that will be easier to manage if flooded (e.g. tiles or floorboards), if practical,
- organising for a licensed electrician to relocate all low sitting power points to be well above previous flood levels,
- relocating essential files and equipment to alternate safe locations (this may be offsite or above ground level), if possible,
- storing hazardous materials safely above ground level or offsite, if possible,
- securing any objects in the practice that are likely to float if flooded,
- arranging for heat sensitive medicines to be stored appropriately at another location such as a local pharmacy, hospital or other practice with alternate power supply,
- advising people reliant on CPAP or oxygen concentrators to evacuate early or source an alternative reliable power source,
- keeping your practice's outdoor garden areas neat and tidy (clear away loose equipment where possible),
- clearing the guttering surrounding your practice,
- having insect repellents available in your emergency kit,
- preparing flood-proofing equipment (e.g. sandbags and plastic sheeting) to use around your premises (see information box below titled ‘Using sandbags’),
- installing flyscreen on windows and doors that are often used or kept open, and
- checking the practice regularly for potential mosquito breeding areas (e.g., any uncovered water containers, small wading pools or old tyres filled with water should be emptied regularly).
Consider your practice’s building structure. Is the building designed to withstand floods? While in most scenarios you may not be able to make significant changes to the structure of your building, being aware of what could be improved upon will help to inform future decisions (i.e., when moving your practice or when presented with an opportunity to expand).
In the event of a flood, all practice team members should be reminded to wear protective clothing (i.e. enclosed shoes or boots and gloves) to help prevent skin contact with flood water and mud affected areas. Good hand hygiene and safe food preparation techniques should continue to be promoted.
Using sandbags
If your practice is in an area prone to flooding, we encourage you to either purchase or be aware of where you can access sandbags. Sandbags will help to minimise damage to the contents of your practice and can help to make the clean-up and recovery phase significantly less burdensome than without using them.
To use sandbags effectively:
- Lay them across any entrances to your practice (e.g., doorways and garage doors).
- Pile sandbags up to create small walls across doorways within your practice that are, at a minimum, the height of the expected flood level.
- Place sandbags on top of drains (e.g., sinks, showers) and toilets to help prevent any backflow of water.
If you have plastic sheeting available, place it under sandbags to help reduce seepage.
Patient resource: Health risks after a cyclone or flood
Healthdirect's contains helpful, broken-down guidance designed for general public use. It covers a range of information including the types of health risks that result from floods and cyclones, where people can seek support during and after either of these events and where to access information indifferent languages.
Take action
- Apply the following recommendations that are relevant to your practice’s location, setup and design.
- Create a new section in your emergency response plan detailing what natural disaster preparation has occurred and any further relevant information. An example of what this may look like can be found below.
Example:
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Preparing for a natural disaster
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Natural disaster type:
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Preparation checklist
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Repeat how often?
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Further information
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i.e. clear practice guttering
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Pandemics
General practices act as the frontline in pandemic response. To ensure the continuation of high-quality clinical care to patients, it is important that you have an up-to-date pandemic plan.
Practices that are prepared for pandemics are:
- more likely to provide effective continuity of care arrangements for their patients,
- proactively helping to ensure that their business operations continue to run as smoothly as possible, and
- ultimately going to be better positioned to meet the emerging and ongoing health needs of their community.
A comprehensive and useful pandemic plan will:
- clearly identify your pandemic leader and pandemic coordinator and outline the responsibilities for these roles and other practice team members,
- list essential pandemic resources (human and material), including practice team member capacity and roles, key stakeholders (i.e., PHNs, Public Health Units (PHUs), hospitals and local diagnostic services) and personal protective equipment (PPE),
- describe effective communication strategies,
- document infection prevention and control policies,
- identify potential triage algorithms for the management of suspected and known cases (noting that your practice will need to establish specific processes based on public health guidance specific to the pandemic at hand),
- identify contingency arrangements for business continuity, including planning for absenteeism and the use of alternative work processes (e.g., the use telehealth, altered workflows, work from home arrangements),
- identify contingency arrangements for patients with particular needs (e.g., patients at greater risk of contracting or having severe complications from an infectious disease),
- outline the supports your practice will provide for people in home isolation and/or quarantine, and
- outline the supports that will be available to your practice’s team members.
Take action
- Use the RACGP’s Managing pandemics in general practice guide to develop a helpful and robust pandemic plan.
- Your pandemic plan does not need to fit a specific template. Some information may be duplicable from other practice documentation. If information relevant to your pandemic plan is already documented elsewhere, simply record in your plan where the information can be accessed.
- Create a new section in your emergency response plan detailing where your practice’s pandemic plan can be located. You may wish to include brief, summarised guidance from your pandemic plan in your emergency response plan.
Cyberattacks or cybersecurity incidents
A cybersecurity incident is a malicious IT event that can involve an attempt to:
- steal data, money or intellectual property,
- destroy data, or
- prevent your computers or networks from operating.
In addition to the very serious risk of compromising patient data and other sensitive information, a cybersecurity incident can lead to financial loss, reputational damage, possible legal liability, identity theft and potential for loss of access to critical business systems.
Take action
To prepare for and help to prevent cybersecurity incidents, you can:
- ensure appropriate firewall and intrusion detection hardware and software is in place on all devices used in your practice,
- regularly check that your software and hardware are updated and upgraded as needed,
- develop and implement practice policies for the use of systems, internet, email and mobile devices,
- use strong password controls on all applications,
- provide training to the full practice team on how to identify cybersecurity risks and report suspicious activity,
- periodically test the effectiveness of your information security controls and audit access to servers, and
- engage an IT specialist to consider technical issues and solutions (i.e., disabling macros, email filtering, geo-blocking, ‘blacklisting’ and ‘whitelisting’ websites, multifactor authentication and data encryption).
Ensure the contact details of your IT specialist is included in your emergency response plan’s key contact list so that in the event of an emergency you can quickly and easily seek their assistance.
Terrorist threats and attacks
While terrorist threats and attacks are not common in Australia, understanding how you can be prepared for and respond to such events is important.
Terrorist attacks will likely be particularly frightening and unexpected. The chaos of these events can make it difficult to respond efficiently in the moment. Being prepared will better position you and your team to react quickly and appropriately.
The Australian Government has that sets out three key steps for keeping safe if you find yourself under attack:
- ESCAPE - move quickly and quietly away from danger, but only if it is safe to do so,
- HIDE - stay out of sight and silence your mobile phone, and
- TELL - call the police by dialling Triple Zero (000) when it is safe.
It should be noted that this guidance can be applied to varying situations, for example a gun or knife attack that is not terrorism related.
Take action
- Familiarise the practice team with the .
- Add a new section to your emergency response plan dedicated to information on responding to terrorist threats and attacks. An example of how you may present this information can be found below.
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Responding to terrorist threats and attacks
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ESCAPE
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- Be aware of your surroundings. If you see a commotion, hear screams, gunfire or loud noises, try to identify where it is coming from. If you think it is dangerous, consider what you can do to stay safe.
- If you see a safe route, ESCAPE and leave the area immediately.
- Take your mobile phone with you if you can, but do not go back to get it if it puts you in danger.
- Leave your other belongings behind.
- Encourage others to go with you, but don’t let their hesitation slow you down.
- Try to stop others from entering the area, but only if it doesn’t put you in any danger.
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HIDE
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- If you are unable to escape, or are unsure if it’s safe to do so, HIDE.
- Silence your mobile phone and other devices and turn off vibrate. Keep mobile devices concealed to reduce light emitted from them.
- Secure your environment by locking doors and windows and barricading entries.
- Move away from doors and be as quiet and still as possible so you do not give away your hiding place.
- Be aware of your exits.
- A safe hiding spot in an armed offender situation is one that puts a sturdy physical barrier between yourself and the offender.
- Constantly review the situation and your options based on your surroundings.
- If you come across any injured people while hiding, providing first aid may help save their lives. But only help if it does not put yourself and others at risk.
- Do not move closer to see what is happening—this may put you at risk.
- Consider looking for something you can use to defend yourself as a last resort if you are found by the offender.
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TELL
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- When it is safe to do so, TELL.
- Call the police by dialling Triple Zero (000). But never at the risk of your own safety or the safety of others.
- The more information you can give about your location, surroundings, the attackers and the events that have occurred, the better.
- You may be asked to stay on the line and provide further information that the operator requests or if the situation changes.
- If it is safe to do so, think about obtaining the following information:
- exact location of the incident
- description of the offender/s and whether they are moving in any particular direction
- details of any weapons being used
- number of people in the area and any that have been injured
- the motive or intent of the offender/s (if known).
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