Emergency planning and business continuity: why blood services must plan for both. How the EBA working group ( WG ) is assisting blood services

Background In 2016, the Executive of the European Blood Alliance ( EBA ) decided to explore whether there was sufficient interest amongst member countries on whether they saw value in the re‐establishment of a Working Group on contingency planning. A survey of members was carried out and as there was sufficient interest a Working Group ( WG ) was established. The question then was how could the work of the WG add value to member countries in their contingency planning process? We set out to establish this. Method Members of the WG decided that there were three areas where the WG should concentrate on and these were as follows: (1) share lessons learnt during past contingencies and response to major disasters, (2) exchange contingency plans and (3) test run of contingency plans. As a first step, it was decided that we would share our existing contingency plans and when these were shared the WG undertook to carry out a gap analysis. It became evident that the state of contingency planning varied across countries. It is vitally important that each BTS ensures that their critical functions of manufacturing, testing and supply management have contingency arrangements in place whether that is within the country or with an international partner. However, having them in place is not enough they must be tested on a regular basis to ensure that they work. It was important that the WG formulated formal terms of reference to inform its work and also to set out clear deliverables. Draft Terms of Reference (ToR) were drawn up and sent to the Board of the EBA for approval in line with the normal procedure for WG s. These have been approved by the Board and are as follows: To share and leverage the knowledge of EBA members so all can move towards best practice (e.g. ISO 22301) To share experience, documentation, risk and other relevant materials and identify common training needs and opportunities. To identify opportunities for mutual aid in business continuity and emergency planning processes, consumables and the provision of services and products and develop these into agreed heads of agreement in bilateral or multilateral mutual aid arrangements. To create routes and mechanisms of communication on business continuity and emergency planning issues between EBA members, and to maintain a forum for discussion on these matters (e.g. EBA newsletter, EBA se). To engage in and lead the conversation on business continuity and emergency planning with the Commission and Competent Authorities to ensure a workable and consistent approach across EBA member states.Outcome The work of the group will deliver a better understanding of contingency planning with tangible examples and case studies which demonstrate how these plans have been activated and the lessons learnt from the events that required their activation. Some of the lessons learnt to date are that (1) there can never be too much communication on the contingency arrangements and there must be deputies in place for the main functional leads in the plan because inevitably the event occurs at a weekend where the nominated people are not always available, (2) the carrying out of a desktop exercise can be very useful and can expose any shortcomings in the contingency plan in a safe environment and (3) communication between the BTS and their contingency partner must ensure that any changes by either party are communicated so that any impact is worked through. The work of the WG is continuing.