Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR)
Keeping Our Patients, Staff and Community Safe.
At Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, our commitment to safety goes beyond day-to-day care. We are fully prepared to respond to Major Incidents and emergencies that may impact our services, patients or the wider community.
Our Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) programme ensures that the Trust is ready to deal with a wide range of incidents — from severe weather and pandemics, to chemical incidents, system failures, and major accidents.
For the NHS, incidents are classed as either:
A business continuity incident is an event or occurrence that disrupts, or might disrupt, an organisation’s normal service delivery, below acceptable predefined levels, where special arrangements are required to be implemented until services can return to an acceptable level (this could be a surge in demand requiring resources to be temporarily redeployed).
A critical incident is any localised incident where the level of disruption results in the organisation temporarily or permanently losing its ability to deliver critical services, patients may have been harmed or the environment is not safe requiring special measures and support from other agencies, to restore normal operating functions.
A major incident is any occurrence that presents serious threat to the health of the community or causes such numbers or types of casualties, as to require special arrangements to be implemented.
To read more about the Framework, please visit the NHS England website.
What is EPRR?
EPRR is a core responsibility for all NHS organisations. It ensures that health services can continue to operate, or be quickly restored, during and after a major disruptive event.
We follow national guidance provided by NHS England and the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), which requires all Category 1 responders — including NHS hospitals — to undertake the following responsibilities:
- Risk Assessment – Identifying and assessing risks relevant to our local area.
- Emergency Planning – Developing robust plans to respond to a wide range of emergencies.
- Business Continuity Management – Ensuring we can maintain or recover essential services.
- Warning and Informing – Communicating effectively with the public before, during, and after an emergency.
- Sharing Information – Cooperating with partner agencies and sharing relevant information.
- Cooperation – Working in partnership with other Category 1 and 2 responders via the Local Resilience Forum (LRF).
- Training and Exercising – Ensuring staff are trained and plans are regularly tested through simulations and exercises.
Our EPRR responsibilities
At Sherwood Forest Hospitals, we:
- Maintain up-to-date Major Incident and Business Continuity Plans.
- Train and exercise staff across all departments in emergency response procedures.
- Collaborate with local health, emergency, and government partners through the Local Resilience Forum.
- Conduct regular emergency planning exercises to test our readiness.
- Participate in regional and national EPRR assurance and peer review processes via the EPRR Core Standards assurance on an annual basis, which is then reported to public board.
In an emergency
If you're a patient or visitor and there's an incident while you’re on site, please follow staff instructions and remain calm. Your safety is our priority.
Business Continuity
Ensuring that our critical services can continue — or quickly recover — in the event of disruption is a key priority.
Our Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) framework helps identify risks and maintain patient safety, no matter the situation.
All our divisions own Business Continuity Plans ensuring they can withstand any disruption to normal service, both in and out of hours.
Get involved and find out more
If you want to know more about emergency preparedness, please see the below links for further information.
Or, if you're a partner organisation interested in collaboration, please get in touch with our EPRR team; Lauren Ward, Emergency Planning and Business Continuity Officer – lauren.ward28@nhs.net.
