Getting the most out of the Rail Pandemic Playbook
Even when sickness rates are low, the Rail Pandemic Playbook can help you increase your pandemic resilience. It’s comprehensive and easy to use, and two events in spring 2023 will run you through how to use it.
We may have got Covid-19 under control, but even as you read this, there are undiscovered diseases out there with pandemic potential that could wreak havoc again at any moment. There’s no reason to think what worked against Covid-19 will work on new diseases, and even if the next pandemic is very similar to Covid-19, we need to do better next time. Rail learnt many things to improve its resilience to public health threats during the pandemic, so there are many ways rail could and should improve. This is particularly important because rail is not only a safety-critical service but also an essential one.
The Pandemic Playbook is designed to help train and freight operators, network managers, and others in rail make the best decisions and preparations they can in the face of public health emergencies. Whether you’re up to your neck in a pandemic when you pick it up, or are shrewd enough to be planning ahead, the pandemic playbook will help you. It adapts the structure used by the World Health Organisation (WHO), of different types of actions, and different stages during a pandemic, to provide a coherent and practical framework of recommended actions. There are six action types including ‘continuity of service’ and ‘protecting staff health and wellbeing’.
The playbook is ‘disease agnostic’ so it covers all different sorts of diseases, and all stages of a pandemic, from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic. Although the playbook is comprehensive in the topics it covers it’s been designed to be easy to use. You can read the playbook from cover to cover or use its colour-coding to quickly find the sections most relevant to your needs. This means it will help you create robust, bespoke, and adaptable pandemic plans which meet the needs of your business.
Two forthcoming events will make it even easier for you to use the playbook.
Webinar on 15 March 2023 - introducing the playbook
The first event is a webinar on 15 March 2023, introducing the playbook and how it can help. Although the Rail Pandemic Playbook is designed for the rail industry, anyone working in public transport will find this webinar useful. Registration is via the booking link below.
Face-to-face interactive workshop 20 April 2023
The second event is a face-to-face interactive workshop on 20 April 2023 specifically for the rail industry. This is for senior managers in rail with responsibility for planning, managing or deploying mitigation measures for future public health emergencies, or those working at strategic or tactical levels in rail. In this specialised workshop, the playbook will be explained in the morning and in the afternoon, delegates will practice what they’ve learnt in a simulation exercise. Interested delegates should contact Claire Shooter, Public Health Manager at RSSB, using the link below.