Major emergencies - Print version

Coventry City Council's Emergency Planning function is undertaken by the Coventry, Solihull & Warwickshire Resilience Team, you can find out more about the work of the team, including the types of emergencies that they plan for and how you can be better prepared for such events on the CSW Team website [https://www.cswprepared.org.uk]. 

If a major incident occurs the first people to become aware of it will usually be the 'blue light' emergency services. West Midlands Police, West Midlands Fire Service, and West Midlands Ambulance Service will inform the CSW Resilience team. The team will initiate the Council's emergency response.

We will: 

• support the emergency service and supply resources where required, within the remit of the local authority.
• provide and manage emergency accommodation - a number of buildings in Coventry are ear marked for this purpose
• assist in the transportation of members of the public who might have to be moved away from an incident
• provide catering, welfare and support to those evacuated
• mobilise the voluntary agencies and co-ordinate their response
• lead the recovery and return to normality
• maintain the local authority day-to-day services at an appropriate level

Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Resilience team

The Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Resilience team provide the emergency planning function for Coventry City Council and share the service with Solihull MBC and Warwickshire County Council.

Both in and out-of-hours the team operates a 24/7 Duty Officer System to ensure an effective response to any incident occurring across the sub-region. The resilience team covers an area of 870 sq miles serving a resident population of over a million.

The work of the CSW resilience team is dictated by the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. 

The Act places a number of duties on Local Authorities which CSW Resilience carries out. These are:

• Assessing the risk of emergencies occurring
• Put emergency plans in place
• Ensure they have robust business continuity management arrangements
• Share information with other local responders to enhance co-ordination
• Co-operate with other local responders to enhance coordination and efficiency
• Provide advice and assistance to businesses and voluntary organisations about business continuity
• Make information available to the public about civil protection matters, and maintain arrangements to warn, inform and advise the public in the event of an emergency

West Midlands Police

The primary areas of police responsibility (British Transport Police for rail incidents) at a major incident are:

1. The saving of life in conjunction with the other emergency services.
2. The co-ordination and communication between the emergency services, local authorities and other organisations acting in support at the scene of the incident or elsewhere.
3. To secure, protect and preserve the scene, and to control sightseers and traffic through the use of cordons:
   • Inner cordon - provides immediate security of the rescue zone and potential crime scene.
   • Outer cordon - seals off an extensive controlled area surrounding the rescue zone. All access and exit points will be controlled and persons requesting access vetted. The control/command vehicles of the emergency services must be positioned between the inner and outer cordons.
   • Traffic cordon - deployed at or beyond the outer cordon preventing vehicular access to the area surrounding the scene and ensuring free movement of emergency service vehicles into and away from the scene
4. The investigation of the incident and securing evidence in conjunction with other investigative bodies where applicable.
5. The collation and dissemination of casualty information.
6. The identification of the dead on behalf of HM Coroner.
7. The prevention of crime.
8. Short term measures to restore normality after all necessary actions have been taken.

West Midlands Fire and Rescue Service

The primary areas of Fire Service responsibility at a major incident are:

1. life saving, through search and rescue
2. fire fighting and fire prevention
3. rendering humanitarian services
4. provide and/or obtain specialist advice and assistance where hazardous materials are involved
5. salvage and damage control including environmental control
6. the provision of specialist equipment, e.g. pumps, rescue, equipment and lighting
7. safety management within the inner cordon (rescue zone)
8. decontamination services

West Midlands Ambulance Service (NHS Trust)

Primary areas of responsibility at a major incident are:

1. to save life in conjunction with the other emergency services
2. to provide treatment, stabilisation and care of those injured at the scene
3. to provide sufficient paramedic units
4. to establish effective triage points and systems, and determine the priority evacuation needs of those injured
5. to provide a focal point at the incident for all NHS and other medical resources
6. to provide communication facilities for NHS resources at the scene, with direct communications links to hospitals, control facilities and any other agency as required
7. to nominate and alert the receiving hospitals for those injured
8. to maintain emergency cover throughout the area and return to a state of normality at the earliest time.

Officers of the City Council will closely liaise with the other partner agencies that may have leading roles in an emergency.

West Midlands Local Resilience Forum

The West Midlands Local Resilience Forum (LRF) [https://www.westmidlandsprepared.gov.uk/] is a partnership of member agencies, including those defined under the Civil Contingencies Act (CCA) 2004 [https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/36/contents] by responder 'categories':

• Category 1 responders are organisations that are directly involved in the response to an emergency. These responders are subject to a number of civil protection obligations. Coventry City Council is a Category 1 responder.
• Category 2 responders have a role to play in response but are less directly involved. The Act does not place such stringent duties on these responders but does require that they share information appropriate to managing emergencies and cooperate fully with the LRF.

Coventry City Council is a member of the West Midlands LRF. We are proud to work with partner agencies to ensure that if and when an emergency occurs, we are prepared to respond together and minimise any impact.

In the event of an incident, the partnership agencies that form the LRF join forces to:

• Consider the hazards that feature in the West Midlands, assess the impacts of the risk, and provide this information to the public in a Community Risk Register.
• Create plans to help make the risks safer, setting out how we will come together to respond should an emergency happen, and how we can help people get back to normal afterwards.
• Ensure our response is coordinated when things do go wrong.
• Carry out training and testing to make sure we are ready.
• Identify lessons from incidents and exercises, learning as we go along to improve how we respond in the future.

Community Risk Register

Every Resilience Forum has a Community Risk Register (CRR) which describes risks for the community and assesses how likely they are to lead to an emergency and the potential impact they would have. The register is created through a risk assessment, and the LRF uses the information to plan and prepare for emergencies that may occur.

The CRR focuses on serious risks that could result in an emergency, defined as:

• An event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom.
• An event or situation which threatens serious damage to the environment of a place in the United Kingdom.
• War or terrorism which threatens serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom.

The West Midlands CRR puts the national risks in a local context and while it doesn’t describe all risks, it highlights those which could affect our routine day-to-day lives.

View the West Midlands Community Risk Register. [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/downloads/download/7667/cvnig567]

View the West Midlands Local Resilience Forum website [https://www.westmidlandsprepared.gov.uk/] 

The potential for national emergencies is determined by the Government in its National Risk Register.  [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-risk-register-2020]