Emergency comms strategy must be tested twice a year

All NHS organisations must test their major incident communications strategy every six months, the government has decreed.

The order to double check the strength of emergency communications systems between NHS organisations and partner services comes after difficulties were experienced exchanging key information during the response to the terrorist attacks on London on 7 July.

The directive forms part of updated 'guidance' on how the NHS must prepare itself for its role in a major incident - such as a flash flood or a terrorist attack.

It completes work started after 9/11 and the Madrid bombings of 2004 to update the 1998 NHS guidance.

NHS organisations will also now be expected to rehearse their contingency plans as a 'live exercise' once every three years and as a 'table-top' exercise once a year. Each trust board must designate an executive director with responsibility for this work, supported by a specifically designated non-executive director, the guidance says.

The guidance also recommends that strategic health authorities identify a regional 'public health adviser' to 'be the main source of public health and health protection advice for the police incident commander and all responding organisations'.

Meanwhile the Department of Health is 'reviewing' the joint health advisory cell arrangements, whereby experts from across the local health economy convene to inform emergency operations, to see 'if there is a better way of operating them', such as linking them up electronically.