What the plan covers
The plan defines the work to be carried out on site if a major accident scenario occurs:
- detecting the event and raising the alarm,
- response teams, their duties and authorities,
- evacuation, assembly and roll call,
- response resources — equipment, protective gear, means of extinguishing and containment,
- communication outward: fire service, medical services, local authority, neighbouring sites,
- after the event: making the site safe, preserving evidence, notifications.
Relation to the external plan
The plan for outside the site is separate and is prepared by the competent authority; the establishment's duty is to supply the information that plan needs. The two are not copies of one another, but their scenarios and assumptions must agree.
No plan without a drill
The plan is reviewed at intervals and tested by drill. The value of a drill lies not in the record that it happened but in the gaps it exposes: the area where the alarm was not heard, the locked exit, the radio that did not work, the incomplete roll call. Unless those become corrective actions, the drill is a ceremony.
Quiet changes that break the plan
A change of shift pattern, people leaving the response team, a door permanently closed, a new store added — none of these looks like a plan update, yet each invalidates the plan. The plan therefore belongs among the outputs of management of change.