Adviser — Emergency and Disaster Medical Preparedness

Areas for assessment

Review activation arrangements, communication, leadership continuity and dependencies on facilities, transport, supplies and external partners. Examine whether plans reflect the services actually available and the constraints likely to arise during disruption. Identify assumptions that have never been tested.

Advisory work

Recommend improvements to plans, role clarity and training. Design proportionate exercises with the relevant stakeholders and capture findings in an actionable improvement register. Help management prioritise gaps according to consequence, feasibility and dependency rather than the ease of closing them.

Preparedness review should include the assumptions made about external assistance, transport, communications and resupply. The adviser should test what the service can do if those resources arrive later than expected. Exercises should have a clear learning purpose and be designed with the relevant authorities so they do not disrupt care unnecessarily. Afterward, recommendations should distinguish changes to plans from changes to capability, with each action linked to evidence that can be reviewed or retested before the organisation claims the gap is closed.

Qualified candidates

Candidates should have healthcare emergency planning, disaster preparedness or operational resilience experience. They need practical facilitation skills and experience coordinating across institutions or professional groups. Any clinical responsibilities require the appropriate qualifications and local authorisation; this advisory brief does not itself confer them.

Evidence of completion

Deliver a readiness assessment, tested assumptions and a prioritised improvement plan with owners. Candidates should discuss an exercise or incident in which an external dependency failed and explain the resulting changes. The adviser does not promise readiness for every event or assume emergency command; the goal is a more credible, practiced and maintainable preparedness capability.