Disasters and emergency incidents
Directive number: QH-HSD-003
Effective date: 16 December 2024
Review date: 13 December 2027
Supersedes: Version 2.0
On this page:
- Purpose
- Scope
- Principles
- Outcomes
- Mandatory requirements
- Compliance
- Human Rights
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander considerations
- Related or governing legislation, policy and agreements
- Supporting documents
- Business area contact
- Approval and implementation
- Review
- Definitions of terms used in this directive
- Version control
Purpose
This Health Service Directive (HSD) requires Hospital and Health Services (HHSs) to develop and maintain a capability to effectively prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters and emergency incidents to support continuity of health services to the community[1].
This Health Service Directive includes mandatory requirements for disaster management functions as well as related functions across the health service and promotes continuous improvement and resilience building across the health service.
Scope
This directive applies to all Hospital and Health Services.
Principles
Actions by the health service to meet the requirements of this Health Service Directive should be guided by the principles in this directive which align to those in the Queensland Inspector-General Emergency Management’s Emergency Management Assurance Framework.
- Leadership: leadership at all levels is demonstrated through a commitment to a shared responsibility for promoting excellence
- Public safety: the safety of staff, patients and the public are the foundation for disaster, emergency and continuity plans and arrangements
- Partnership: partnerships are well-governed, drive clear roles and responsibilities and promotes collaboration
- Performance: effectiveness of the health service’s disaster management is evaluated, analysed against standards, and continually improved; and good practice is identified, shared, and embedded across prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery.
Outcomes
The following outcomes are aligned with, and support, Hospital and Health Services to meet the accountabilities of the Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland. All Hospital and Health Services shall achieve the following outcomes.
- Governance: effective disaster and emergency management governance and administration of responsibilities that supports clear, consistent and appropriate decision making.
- See mandatory requirements under Governance.
- Doctrine: effective doctrine, including plans and arrangements, use common language and terminology, guiding principles and reflects good practice.
- People: Individuals across the health service with the roles and responsibilities in disaster management or disaster operations are supported and enabled by training, and opportunities to develop relevant skills and experience.
- Enablers: effective resources, including redundancies, that support the organisation to undertake disaster management and disaster operations appropriate to its needs and requirements.
- Continuous Improvement: lessons management programs that provide effective monitoring, evaluation, measurement and improvement of disaster management activities.
- See mandatory requirements under Doctrine (Preparedness)
- See mandatory requirements under Governance and Preparedness.
- See mandatory requirements under Response.
- See mandatory requirements under Capability and Capacity (Preparedness) and Continuous Improvement.
Mandatory requirements
Governance
Emergency Management Committees
- Establish an emergency management committee[2], or equivalent, that:
- has a Terms of Reference that requires regular meetings, requires members to undertake training and exercising, outlines appropriate membership of the health service, including agreed roles and responsibilities of membership, including appropriate delegation to commit resources for their area.
- directs and supports emergency and disaster management activities, including planning, preparedness, capability development, operational readiness and continuous improvement activities including lessons management across the HHS.
Engagement
- Maintain appropriate appointments to, and records of, key disaster and emergency incident roles including member and deputy appointments to local and district disaster management groups[3], any sub-groups and to Queensland Health disaster management governance.
- Persons appointed to local and district disaster management groups meet the minimum requirements of membership including training and are aware of and accept their responsibilities to fulfill legislated functions of the group on behalf of Queensland Health.
- Have arrangements in place for cooperation between hospitals and facilities within the HHS, including collaboration between the local and district disaster management group members across the HHS, with other HHSs, and with the Department of Health including the Queensland Ambulance Services.
- Have arrangements in place with key external stakeholders identified by the HHS that:
- supports information and resource management
- promotes risk management of identified risks and shared responsibilities
- Provides information and advice regarding health-related aspects of disasters and emergency incidents to disaster management groups, and key external health stakeholders.
Prevention
- In line with existing health service risk management processes, undertake risk assessments and risk management relating to disaster management and disaster operations.
- Undertake hazard assessments and disaster risk reduction activities, including opportunities across infrastructure and public health programs.
- Develop and maintain a business continuity management system that follows recognised standards[4].
- Promote disaster risk reduction through internal staff engagement across the HHS and contributing to community readiness programs (such as ‘Get Ready’ or equivalent led by councils).
Preparedness
Doctrine
- Develop and maintain plans and arrangements, including disaster and emergency incident plans (or equivalent) and mass casualty incident plans.
- Plans are localised and operationally compatible to and across the HHS, while aligned with the requirements and incident management arrangements outlined in Queensland Health Disaster and Emergency Incident doctrine and relevant local and district disaster management plans.
- Maintain a regular review schedule review for plans and other arrangements[5].
Capability and capacity
- Establish and maintain training and exercise programs that:
- reflects the needs of the health service and builds capacity and capability to support disaster management and disaster operations
- includes incident management roles at both health service and facility levels, and disaster management group members where appropriate
- develops the understanding of health service and Queensland Health roles and responsibilities, as well as the roles and responsibilities of external agencies, under the Queensland State Disaster Management Plan
- evaluates the content and effectiveness of plans and arrangements through exercises that consider lessons identified and contribute to lessons management programs and continuous improvement
- promotes broader readiness across the health service, including staff not required to be directly involved in capability activities.
Response
- Establish and maintain incident management arrangements including:
- Health Emergency Operation Centres that are functional, resourced and maintained
- Internal escalation procedures to notify key stakeholders of disruptions, emergencies or disasters to enable effective decision making, communications, and response
- Information sharing and notification is provided to external agencies, disaster management groups, or the State Health Emergency Coordination Centre (SHECC) of disruptions as required regarding potential to escalate, potential external impacts or potential to initiate activation of a disaster and emergency incident response
- Ability to respond to Requests for Assistance, and coordinate assistance where possible, regardless of HHS activation status.
- Establish and maintain incident management groups and incident management teams that can effectively:
- undertake incident planning, including response, transition and recovery planning
- identify required resources and resource gaps (human, financial and material)
- maintain processes to manage and track the use of human, financial and material
- are able to coordinate and respond to requests from within the HHS, from the SHECC and from disaster management groups as reasonably practicable
- provide timely and detailed situational reporting, including being able to respond to ad hoc urgent information requests from the SHECC and provide critical updates (such as significant impact to health service or notice of death)
- ensure decisions and actions are recorded[6]
- utilise incident management system platforms and other supporting information and communication technologies.
Recovery
- Determine and coordinate health service recovery, commencing as part of and as a continuation of disaster response.
- Undertake recovery planning with respective areas, including relevant clinical areas, to consider related impacts and transition to business-as-usual activities.
- Providing representation, supporting human social recovery planning and reporting to local and district recovery groups and the Department of Health as required.
Continuous improvement
- Establishes and maintains a lessons management process.
- Provides representation, and observations as requested, to Queensland Health and disaster management group debriefs.
Compliance
Compliance with this directive will be determined via:
- Hospital and Health Services are responsible for ensuring compliance with this directive.
- The Disaster Management Branch, jointly with disaster management committees, may promote information sharing across HHSs regarding implementation and continuous improvement of mandatory requirements.
Human Rights
Human rights have been considered as a part of this process. Human rights are not limited by this Health Service Directive, however, implementation of the requirements described above will support the Right to healthcare.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander considerations
The impact this HSD will have on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander stakeholders has been taken into consideration. Implementation of this Health Service Directive is expected to support the continuity of critical health services including to First Nations people.
Related or governing legislation, policy and agreements
- Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011 [Qld]
- Disaster Management Act 2003 [Qld]
- Queensland State Disaster Management Plan and supporting doctrine
- Emergency Management Assurance Framework 2.0
- Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland V2.0
- AS 3745:2010 Planning for Emergencies in Facilities
- AS 4083:2010 Planning for emergencies – Health care facilities
- AS 5050: 2020 Business continuity – Managing disruption-related risk
- ISO 22301: 2019 Security and Resilience – Business continuity management system
Supporting documents
- Queensland Health Disaster and Emergency Incident Management Plan (QHDISPLAN) and supporting doctrine
Business area contact
- Disaster Management Branch, Office of the Chief Health Officer
Approval and implementation
Directive Custodian
Chief Health Officer, Queensland Health
Approval by Chief Executive
Director General, Queensland Health
Approval date: 13 December 2024
Issued under section 47 of the Hospital and Health Boards Act 2011.
Review
This Health Service Directive will be reviewed at least every three years.
Next review due by: 13/12/2027
Definitions of terms used in this directive
The Disaster Management Act 2003 provides definitions of the following:
- Disaster
- Disaster event
- Disaster management
- Disaster operations
- Resilience
The Queensland Health Disasters and Emergency Incidents Plan, under Definitions, also includes the definitions for disaster and disaster events and outlines the criteria for an emergency incident.
Please see the below for additional definitions.
| Term | Definition / explanation / details | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Business continuity management | The holistic management process that identifies potential threats to an organization and the impacts to business operations those threats, if realized, might cause and which provides a framework for building organisational resilience with the capability to effectively manage disruption related risks against critical business functions. | ISO 22301: 2019 Security and Resilience – Business continuity management system |
| Continuous improvement | Continuous improvement refers to how entities monitor, evaluate, measure and improve their disaster management activities. | Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland (Accountabilities) |
| Disaster risk reduction | Disaster risk reduction aims to prevent new, and reduce existing, disaster risk and manage residual risk, all of which contribute to strengthening resilience and achievement of sustainable development. | State Disaster Management Plan |
| Doctrine | Doctrine refers to the ideas, strategies and guiding principles contained in the documents that guide disaster management | Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland (Accountabilities) |
| Effective (relating to disaster management systems) | Effective disaster management should consistently display or give good practice attributes: Scalable, Comprehensive, Interoperable, Value Driven and Adaptable. See EMAF for full attribute descriptions. | Queensland Emergency Management Assurance Framework (Good practice attributes) |
| Enablers | Enablers refer to the resources that assist entities in undertaking disaster management activities. This includes both the physical equipment and assets, and the systems, data and technologies. | Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland (Accountabilities) |
| Governance | Governance refers to how entities administer their disaster management responsibilities and ensure decision making is appropriate, clear and consistent. | Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland (Accountabilities) |
| Lessons management | Lessons management is an overarching term that refers to collecting, analysing, disseminating and applying learning experiences from events, exercises, programs and reviews. | Lessons Management Handbook (AIDR, 2019) and Queensland Health Lessons Management guide |
| People | People refers to the relationships and networks, training, skills and experience that enable the individuals who undertake disaster management to do so effectively. | Standard for Disaster Management in Queensland (Accountabilities) |
Version control
| Version | Date | Prepared by | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.0 | January 2017 | Health Disaster Management Unit | First Issue |
| 2.0 | July 2021 | Health Disaster Management Unit | Changes to the Emergency Management Assurance Framework (EMAF) V2.0 have been aligned to the Health Service Directive. Changes made to implement findings of the Health Service Directive Evaluation undertaken in late 2019, in direct collaboration with Hospital and Health Services. |
| 3.0 | December 2024 | Disaster Management Branch | Transition to new HSD template and sections. Mandatory requirements restructured to reflect the prevention, preparedness, response and recovery phases while still aligned with the Emergency Management Assurance Framework (EMAF) V2.0. Purpose revised and Principle and Outcome sections simplified. |
Footnotes
- In accordance with the Disaster Management Act 2003 and responsibilities under the State Disaster Management Plan., as outlined in the Queensland Health Disasters and Emergency Incidents Plan.
- In line with AS 3745:2010 Planning for Emergencies in Facilities, Section 2 Emergency Planning Committee; and DM Act Part 3 Business and meetings of disaster management groups.
- In line with DM Act s. 23 & 30 regarding functions of district and local disaster management groups.
- In line with AS 5050: 2020 Business continuity – managing disruption-related risk and Clinical Governance Standard, National Safety and Quality Health Standards.
- In line with DM Act s. 55 & 59 regarding reviewing and renewing district and local disaster management plans; and QHDISPLAN s 1.6 Review requirements.
- See the Queensland Health Incident Management System Guideline, Record keeping section, for more information.