Managing emergencies and disasters in general practice

Module 1 – Prevention and preparedness


Understanding the Australian Warning System

      1. Understanding the Australian Warning System

Module 1 – Prevention and preparedness | Understanding the Australian Warning System

In the past, emergency warning systems have varied for different hazard types across Australia.

The is a new, consistent national system that helps everyone to recognise emergency alerts and calls to actions. The system has three warning levels, each associated with a certain colour and action statements to help provide clearer, more consistent advice about how to respond to a warning.

While it is particularly important that your Emergency Coordinator, Deputy Emergency Coordinator and Communications Officer are all aware of and familiar with the AWS, ensuring that the full practice team understands the system can be beneficial.

Take action

  • Ensure the full team is provided basic education on the Australian Warning System.
  • The Australian Institute for Disaster Resilience and Australian Government’s National Emergency Management Agency have developed the following resources that can be used to educate the practice team:
  • Add a section to your emergency response plan that includes brief information on how to understand the Australian Warning System. See the example below for guidance on how you might present this information.

Please note that the Australian Warning System uses a nationally consistent set of icons to represent the type of emergency or disaster taking place.

Example:

The Australian Warning System levels
Advice Watch and act Emergency warning
An incident has started. There is no immediate danger. Stay up to date in case the situation changes.
 
 
 
Warning colour: Yellow
There is a heightened level of threat. Conditions are changing and you need to start taking action now to protect you and your family.
 
 

Warning colour: Orange
 
An Emergency Warning is the highest level of warning. You may be in danger and need to take action immediately. Any delay now puts your life at risk.



Warning colour: Red

 
 
 
This event attracts CPD points and can be self recorded

Did you know you can now log your CPD with a click of a button?

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