Swine flu - Contingency planning

With increasing numbers of people contracting swine flu, have you thought how this might impact on your organisation?

It's important to think ahead; unplanned events can have a devastating effect on your organisation. 

Do you have a contingency plan should any of your staff/volunteers contract swine flu?

A plan would help to minimise the disruption to your organisation by ensuring continuity in the delivery of your services.

How would you deliver your services should a number of individuals of your organisation be off sick over a period of time? 

Address all these questions before they become issues by having in place a Contingency Plan. A well developed contingency plan has enormous value for your organisation, helping to identify risks and their possible impact.

Drawing up a Contingency Plan

Questions you might want to ask about your organisation when considering contingency planning:

• How would each section of your organisation operate if a significant number of your staff/volunteers could not come in?
• What activities are essential and what could be adapted, postponed or even stopped all together?

As an example, if a fire were to break out, staff and volunteers should know:

where to go what to do when to do it when to stop recovery plan.

Depending on the complexity of your organisation, contingency plans may be prepared in detail or in outline only, whichever works for your organisation. In the case of swine flu it is a good idea to identify specific preventative measures such as workplace hygiene (washing hands very frequently), reporting illnesses and identifying signs of potential problems.

A contingency plan should include provisions for the following:

• responsibility - who is to take control in a crisis
• priorities - some tasks are more important than others
• information - all information that will need to be available should be gathered in advance
• communication - problems can be confounded by poor communication. Every person should be aware of problems and how they might be controlled
• practice - prepare various "what-if" scenarios, defining roles and responsibilities; the plan where practically possible should be tested.

The Cabinet Office and Department of Health have produced Swine Flu - UK Planning Assumptions in which they are currently assuming a 9% workforce absenteeism rate, rising to 12% as the year progresses as a worst case scenario. To download a copy of the full document click http://digbig.com/5baccy