Disaster support for residential aged care homes

As we enter the high-risk weather season and anticipate more extreme weather conditions in the coming months, it is a good time to start to prepare. We thought it would be useful to put together a list of things to consider.  Please note, this is not an exhaustive list, but more a guide to assist with planning.

Emergency Management Plan

• You should review and update your emergency management plan every year. Safe Work Australia provides advice on how to prepare an emergency management plan, including a template
• We developed a checklist of activities to help you prepare:  Preparing for an emergency event – Residential aged care
• If you have previously been through an emergency event, work with your team to review what worked well and what didn’t, and update your plan accordingly
• The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission has provided a good case study of reviewing a plan Case study – Preparing for bushfire emergencies | Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission
• And REMEMBER – when the power goes out, access to the internet can go out too, so have hard copy records for critical contacts you may need.

Preparation for shelter in place

There are a number of steps that can be taken to ensure adequate supplies if shelter in place is needed.  It is recommended that planning should be for up to a week to shelter in place.  Some things to consider include:

• Adequate food and bottled water
• testing your generators on full load and making sure there is sufficient fuel
• adequate medicines and pharmaceutical needs
• alternative communication methods (if power is off and your landline phone is connected through the NBN, then your phone won’t work)
• awareness of roads that may be closed during an event, impacting staff and supplies availability
• registering with your energy provider if eligible for the Life Support Program prior to a critical incident
• Life support customers | Energex
• Life Support – Retail – Ergon Energy

Staying up to date

The below links are a useful way to stay up to date with the current situation in your region.  Save these as favourites on mobile phones in case power goes down.

• Local government disaster dashboards | Community support | Queensland Government
• https://www.fire.qld.gov.au/Current-Incidents
• ABC radio also provides local updates

During an emergency

• Contact 000 if you need immediate help
• The SES is available to assist with non-life threatening events such as trees down or flooding, they can be contacted on:
  • Contact SES 132 500 from anywhere in Queensland for non-life-threatening flood and storm emergency assistance during severe weather events.
  • SES can also be contacted via Queensland SES – Report an incident
  • Or Lodge a request on the SES Assistance QLD App, available for both Apple and Android devices
• After you have called emergency services, you can also contact the Qld Local Network if you:
  • need help finding alternative accommodation after an evacuation
  • cannot meet your obligations under your grant or aged care funding agreement.

Evacuation

• In an emergency, you may need to relocate residents to maintain their level of care.
• It is important to have a clear plan ahead of time should this requirement eventuate.
• Ensure you know where you can evacuate to, what would be the trigger points for an evacuation, and how you would evacuate
• When this happens, you can temporarily relocate residents to a different aged care home or another location. You do not need to discharge them from your service.
• The Department has a factsheet that covers temporary relocation of resident arrangements: Temporary relocation of residents in emergency situations | Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care

Additional information

For more details on how to provide service continuity during emergencies, please visit Service continuity and emergency events in aged care.

If you have any questions, please contact the Qld Local Network at: Engagement.QLD@health.gov.au