Notification and activation of health care services in an incident

The commencement of the WA Health response to a potential or actual major incident relies on a series of notifications and activations. Operational Directive 0302/10 outlines the arrangements hospitals must have in place to enable timely achievement of these notifications and activations.

OD 0302/10 – Incident communication systems and procedures in WA Health

For more information, contact us.

Hospital Response Teams

Hospital Response Teams are a team of Emergency Department based clinicians deployed to a mass casualty incident site to aid St John Ambulance. The Western Australia Disaster Medical Response Team Subplan 2006 is in force, however, will be superseded by the Western Australia Disaster Health Response Team Capability Subplan in 2011. The latter includes significant changes to response arrangements.

All hospitals with Emergency Departments or with a health emergency response role should have Code Brown “External Disaster” plans that outline the site specific arrangements.

Of note, Operational Directive 0164/08 Variation to Health Response Arrangements outlines 3 major changes to the arrangements outlined in the Western Australia Disaster Medical Response Team Subplan 2006:

1. Change of title – “Medical Commander” to “Health Commander”
2. Change of name – “Medical Response Teams” to “Hospital Response Teams”
3. Revision to Hospital Response Team Structures & Rosters

Hospital Response Teams use the Disaster Response Kits issued by the DPMU. Distribution and maintenance of the kits is coordinated by the Operations and Logistics portfolio.

Notification of hospital incidents

Hospitals are required to notify the DPMU of all internal incidents that:

1. is ASNZS 4083-2010 code red, orange or purple, or
2. disrupts any internal or external communications, or
3. disrupts services to the extent that other WA Health services may conceivably be affected.

Notifications shall go to On Call Duty Officer on 08 9328 9553.

Hospitals shall also notify the DPMU of all planned internal service outages or maintenance that may conceivably affect other WA Health services. Notifications of planned internal service outages or maintenance can go to ocdo@health.wa.gov.au

For further information, contact us.