7 July 2005 - emergency plans

Final comments from the 7 July bombing response report. See previous posts.

The report suggests there was a lack of consideration of the individuals caught up in major or catastrophic incidents. Procedures tend to focus too much on incidents, rather than on individual and on processes rather than people. Emergency plans tend to cater for the needs of the emergency and other responding services, rather than explicitly addressing the needs and priorities of the people involved.

Part of the problem was that plans were developed in light of September 11th in New York where most people died and relatively few survived. This was opposite in London on July 7 when there were a great number of survivors to deal with. From this it was recommended that plans need to be recast on the needs of individuals involved in major catastrophes rather than the needs of emergency services. This will require a change of mindset from incidents to individuals and from processes to people.