The Territory Government has adopted a comprehensive approach to emergency management that recognises four elements:
- Prevention: activities to seek to eliminate or reduce the impact of a hazard.
- Preparedness: establishing emergency organisations, developing plans and testing arrangements, as well as providing public education and information.
- Response: Effective response involves activating preparedness arrangements and plans immediately after any hazard impact.
- Recovery: assisting communities affected by emergencies to help them recover emotionally, socially, economically and physically.
Recovery from a major emergency or disaster is coordinated through the Department of the Chief Minister. For further information, visit the Department of the Chief Minister's website.
To ensure that the Department of Health and Families maintains its ability to respond in an emergency or a disaster, training is an important component of our emergency planning. Emergency management training may be informal or formally obtained through a number of ways such as:
- In-time or on-the-job
- Self-learning packages such as CDs or DVDs
- Group training, such as workshops, Discussion, simulations, table top and/or multi-agency exercises
- Accredited under and post-graduate learning provided by universities or other registered training providers
- Attendance at Australian Emergency Management Institute (AEMI) courses
- At the beginning of each 'disaster' season, October to April all three NT DHF response groups in each region will undertake a training workshop with their group to ensure their readiness to respond.
Emergency management and clinical practice courses are also held by the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC). Examples of some of the courses available are:
- Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) Team and Commander Course
- Trauma Response Training - (strategies to decrease psychological trauma of staff responding to an event)
- Emergo-Train - a disaster simulation exercise and training system that uses a series of whiteboards and magnetic symbols to represent resources available, incorporating a patient bank with descriptions of injuries and potential clinical interventions
For further information download the NCCTRC Training Calendar 2010 - NCCTRC Training Calendar 2010 (Adobe PDF document - 243KB)
