Working with partners during an emergency

Liverpool Primary Care Trust works closely with partner agencies when carrying out emergency planning activities. Plans, policies and procedures are all looked at on a multi-agency basis to ensure they work well together.

Exercises to test these plans are also carried out frequently on a multi-agency basis. Under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 the principal mechanism for multi-agency co-operation at the local level is the Local Resilience Forum (LRF). In Merseyside this is known as the Merseyside Resilience Forum. It is based on the Merseyside Police Force area and brings together all the organisations who have a duty to co-operate under the Civil Contingencies Act, along with others who would be involved in the response to an emergency.  For a brief overview of the Act please see the Short Guide to the CCA .

Organisations are represented at the Merseyside Resilience Forum at a senior level. The Forum's overall purpose is to ensure that there is an appropriate level of preparedness to enable an effective multi-agency response to emergency incidents which may have a significant impact on the communities of Merseyside.

In order to determine what the highest risks of an emergency are in Merseyside the Merseyside Resilience Forum has carried out a risk assessment. This examines the likelihood of hazards occurring in Merseyside and the impact they would have.  Following this process a community risk register for Merseyside has been produced which identifies any potential risks that may affect the local communities.