The Business Continuity Plan Chris Owens/Annette Mercer Public Health Knowsley MBC Local Pharmaceutical Committee 18 June 2014

Business Continuity Plan A Business Continuity plan is developed to ensure that business can return to "business-as-usual“ as quickly and painlessly as possible in the event of a major disruption. Any number of events can bring business grinding to a halt; the purpose of business continuity is to ensure that you can respond sensibly as an organisation and as individuals. A plan should identify all the requirements which are essential for keeping the business running and include processes to keep disruption to a minimum. It also ensures that you can manage a crisis effectively.

Business Continuity Team The Business Continuity Team is the group of key staff who will be called together to: manage the response to an incident monitor the maintenance of critical activities oversee the post-incident recovery process (This ranges from one or two people to a team that includes staff from Head Office)

Business Plan Checklist

Advice on what to put in the Plan Contains a version history / date the plan was last updated (ideally updated every six months) Identifies a plan owner Identifies a business continuity or incident management team (ideally with deputies) who will implement the plan Contains a clear index / list of contents Is protectively marked and contains a data protection statement

Contents of the Plan Identifies the criteria / scenarios in which the plan will be activated Includes step-by-step checklists for the actions to be taken Identifies how actions will be prioritised Identifies realistic recovery timescales Identifies specific IT recovery, telephony diversion and manual workaround arrangements

Contents of the Plan Event log Service Specific Information e.g. key partners (local authority, drug service, stop smoking service, sexual health service) Critical records and documents Staff contact details who would be expected to respond to an incident All staff contact details Skills audit

Contents of the Plan The dates and frequency at which the plan is tested The type of testing carried out (e.g. desktop ‘walkthrough’ exercise The findings from tests and exercises, i.e. what learning points were captured and how these have been used to improve the plan Number, duration and type of outages / disruptions to business-as-usual experienced in the last five years The findings from post-incident debrief, i.e. what learning points were captured after the incident and how these have been used to improve the plan

Who will hold copies Business Continuity Team Electronic master copy Copy kept in the ‘Battle Box’

Battle Box Business continuity plan Standard operating procedures PGD’s Staff contacts Logging record books List of all the contracts / service specifications etc FOR CONSIDERATION Major incident plan Outbreak plan Cold weather plan Heat wave plan Pandemic flu plan

Storing of data To ensure minimal loss it is important to save data in the appropriate place. Is your system backed up on a 24 hour basis so if there was a loss of IT the loss would be negligible? Remember Information Security. In particular, remember that sensitive data should not be ed to personal (home) accounts.

Debrief Held after any incident /disruption Lessons learned collected from whole team

Summary Corporate document Used in the event of a major disruption Regular walkthrough exercises Updated every 6 months

Any Questions?