Imagine there was a national fuel emergency. How would your organisation respond?
That was the question put to NHS Direct, the East of England Strategic Health Authority and all NHS Trusts in the East region by the Health Protection Agency during Exercise Black Gold in April 2010.
Exercise Black Gold was classed as a ‘rising tide’ major incident with a two week build-up culminating on Wednesday, 14th April 2010. It involved mock news articles reporting on fuel shortages, oil refinery closures and was compounded by a severe weather warning. This type of exercise simulates an emergency in a very realistic way and tests organisations’ ability to work together and deal with the consequences of a major incident. The responses of all the organisations taking part in the exercise were recorded for later evaluation.
At NHS Direct, we aimed to:
Barry Evans, NHS Direct’s Silver Commander for the exercise said, “The scenarios tested various aspects of our business continuity plans. I was particularly impressed with the focus, attention and team work demonstrated by everyone throughout the exercise, which was echoed by the exercise observers”.
