A Colchester health Trust is to urgently review its emergency plan in the light of heightened fears of terrorist attacks

The town's primary care Trust's current emergency plan fails to meet new requirements from the Department of Health following fears over national security, and needs to review the plan by March 15.

Mike Priest, director of primary care and corporate governance at the PCT, has warned the Trust's plan will not perform well against the Department of Health's guidelines.

The PCT is set to form a major incident response team "as a matter of urgency" and is considering holding a mock incident in the near future to test the plan.

The Department of Health has requested all health bodies to complete a self-assessment of their current emergency plans and to review the plan where necessary.

Situations covered in the self-assessment include radiological, nuclear, biological and chemical incidents and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

The PCT's professional executive committee is due to discuss the emergency plan at a meeting tomorrow

Mr Priest said: "In these times of heightened national security, the PCT is required to review its emergency plan and to report to the Department of Health by March 15."

He added: "Colchester PCT has a draft emergency plan that has been developed with minimal organisational support.

"Our plan would not perform well against the self-assessment criteria.

"The PCT must keep the plan up to date, test the plan at regular intervals, both internally and in co-operation with our partner agencies, and provide infrastructure and support should the plan need to be activated at any time."

Mr Priest will ask the PCT's executive committee to approve setting up the major incident response team "as a matter of urgency."

Published Monday, February 24, 2003

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