Development of the ACTDGP emergency response plan.

Winner: Post-disaster Category, Private Organisation Stream, Safer Communities Awards 2005.

The ACT Division of General Practice (ACTDGP) is an independent organisation with a core focus to support general practitioners in their role of providing quality primary care to the Canberra community. It represents approximately 380 general practitioners in the ACT and surrounding region. Over 2004/05 the ACTDGP has developed an Emergency Response Plan as a functional plan additional to the ACT Health Emergency Management sub-plan. It is the first such division in Australia to develop a plan that integrates the valuable and willing medical resources of private sector general practices and practitioners with the jurisdictional health sector and emergency services arrangements. The ACTDGP Emergency Response Plan integrates with the ACT Health Emergency Management Plan that provides strategic governance to the ACT health sector by providing a command and control structure for the most efficient and appropriate use of Territory health sector resources in response to emergencies and disasters. The Plan, providing for an ?all hazards? approach, includes operational and coordination procedures, covers legal and financial issues, identifies primary care centres, looks at responsibilities during a crisis, provides for education and training, exercises, debriefing procedures, and critical incident stress management.