Many think ‘it will never happen to us’, but as seen by the recent incidents of sabotage at Sydney Hospitals, Urgent security review for all NSW public hospitals as patient dies after alleged gas sabotage, Patient dies in Sutherland Hospital after critical services were allegedly cut off | 7NEWS, with one sadly resulting in a fatality, we are moving into a world where a catastrophic event is more of a ‘when’ than an ‘if’.

Whilst this has always been a reality, one of the challenges is that as we have become more reliant on technology and more complex supply chains, with the implications of the consequences and likelihood resulting in catastrophic events. And whilst those events in themselves are tragic and incur loss on many levels, the downstream impact of these incidents means significant disruption, with the need to not only make safe but to also prove to be safe. The NSW Department of Health is now aiming to do that through a statewide security audit of medical gases.

There are two key facets in preparing for these events:

  • Prevent/Reduce: assess and treat risk and security in these recent hospital examples to reduce the likelihood and/or consequences
  • Respond: with the least amount of impact on objectives, through the preparation of establishing operational resilience.

Understanding operational resilience is becoming a critical aspect of business strategy that needs to be driven by – and incorporated into – your risk, emergency, business continuity and communication programs.

This is more than just having a basic emergency and business continuity plan sitting on the shelf waiting to be opened.  It requires a thorough understanding of the principles behind evaluating your critical functions/assets so that you are developing the resources, skills and experience within your organisation to respond effectively and efficiently.

This is built on several foundational principles, including:

  • the identification of critical business services
  • scenario planning and impact tolerance
  • integrated risk and resilience strategies
  • cross-functional collaboration
  • continuous improvement; and
  • learning from disruptions.

These principles are essential for designing systems and processes that are inherently robust, agile and responsive in the face of disruption.

But where to start?

One of the best places to start is to build an understanding of if you have the skills and expectations within your organisation to deliver on these principles.  This is often where there is a benefit from bringing in an external party with the ability to see past organisational bias.

The team at Anchoram Consulting can bring a range of experience, skills, expertise and qualifications in the establishment of guiding frameworks. In the prevent / reduce space, this includes threat and security risk assessments through to security risk treatment plans. For response, this includes developing and implementing emergency, business continuity and communication plans, and coordinating assurance programs for Critical Infrastructure – be they public and private sector entities, large or small.

Contact Anchoram Consulting today: Contact Us – Anchoram Consulting