HSCP Toolkit
Toolkit for Health Service Continuity Planning for Healthcare Facilities managed by RCRC Societies
What is Health Service Continuity Planning?
Planning for crises takes different names in different sectors (see the Glossary section for definitions of these and related terms). Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a crucial tool aiming at ensuring the continuity of services in adverse conditions, for example during and after a disaster, conflict, but also an epidemic outbreak. It can be applied to different structures and organizations, including healthcare facilities (HCFs). WHO uses the term Health Services Continuity Planning instead of Business Continuity Planning, and many healthcare facilities may identify more with this terminology, which is why the term has been retained for this toolkit.
Some healthcare facilities around the world have begun applying lessons learned from COVID-19 and developing HSCPs. Ideally, a HSCP for healthcare facilities would help build health systems resilience, especially in contexts that are exposed to multiple hazards and risks.
Why this Health Service Continuity Plan toolkit?
In many countries around the world, the RCRC NS manage healthcare facilities as part of their auxiliary status to national governments. Health Service Continuity Plans are needed for these RCRC managed HCFs to assure continuity of services during outbreaks and disasters, facilitate reacting to changing needs and mobilising across multiple fronts to address the healthcare needs of a population. Health Service Continuity Plans for healthcare facilities contribute to efforts aiming at health system resilience, especially in contexts that are exposed to multiple hazards, such as the combination of new potential future outbreaks and disasters.
This toolkit was developed to support RCRC-managed health care facilities to minimize disruption, be able to maintain essential services, and ultimately increase the resilience of health services during public health emergencies, disasters, and other crises. Figure 3 shows the logical framework for the Health Service Continuity Planning toolkit. The toolkit is the input, leading to the development of the Health Service Continuity Plans in HCFs (output). When a crisis strikes, the plan is then implemented (outcome), leading to decreased or minimised disruption of healthcare services (impact level desired change).
Objective of the toolkit
To provide step-by-step guidance for developing service continuity plans in the context of specific local threats by outlining the procedures and key elements to be considered for planning including a planning template.