NHS Lanarkshire and Scottish Water | Enhancing crisis readiness

Business Stream were delighted to recently facilitate a scenario-based emergency planning workshop in collaboration with Scottish Water and NHS Lanarkshire, who hosted the event, at University Hospital Monklands.

Intent and focus of the workshop

The purpose of the workshop, facilitated by Business Stream’s Emergency and Contingency Manager, was to test organisational resilience and collaborative response in the event of a water outage affecting operational effectiveness at the hospital.

Over 30 representatives participated from across the three organisations including NHS Management, Clinical leads, Scottish Ambulance Service, Scottish Water Emergency Planning staff, NHS Communications Management, Business Continuity leads, Estates and Facilities teams, and Business Stream’s Account Management team.

The exercise aimed to ensure all parties, Business Stream, Scottish Water and NHS Lanarkshire, could respond effectively to a major water outage, if it was ever to occur, while identifying any potential enhancements.

The workshop reviewed current ways of working between teams and organisations, tested communication and information‑sharing across departments and agencies, and assessed the speed and effectiveness of decision‑making.

It also focused on ensuring accurate information reached the right people within the right timescales, providing decision‑makers with clear details on risks and challenges, and included practical exercises to test the management, resolution and recovery process in the event that a water supply failure was to occur.

Positive impacts and benefits

The exercise successfully stress‑tested Scottish Water’s Emergency Water Plan, the Hospital’s business continuity plans, and major incident response arrangements - providing valuable insights into the interoperability of organisations and NHS internal teams.

"Exercise Dew Point provided a valuable opportunity to test and strengthen our collective response to a critical water outage scenario. I’d like to thank our colleagues at Scottish Water and NHS Lanarkshire for their full engagement and collaboration throughout the exercise planning and the event itself."

"The open dialogue, cross organisational learning and shared commitment to resilience have been outstanding. This exercise reinforced the robustness of our emergency procedures and our commitment to continuous improvement, ensuring we remain prepared to protect vital services and patient safety at Monklands Hospital and across other critical sites in NHS Lanarkshire." - David Campbell, Emergency and Contingency Manager at Business Stream

It highlighted further opportunities to strengthen emergency and contingency planning, including potential upgrades to hospital equipment, infrastructure, and supply chain resilience. And in addition, identified the need for future joint planning, exercises, and programme delivery across other NHS Boards to further enhance preparedness and collaboration.

"Exercise Dew point was the best Resilience Planning Day I have ever attended. The organisation of the event by NHS Lanarkshire, Scottish Water and Business Stream was first class. It tested our clinical and non-clinical responses to a significant issue whilst providing us with assurance on the professionalism and commitment of Scottish Water and Business Stream to supporting delivery of safe patient services in a major incident. I would highly recommend other NHS organisations to work with Scottish Water and Business Stream to hold these planning events to protect vital NHS services" - MaryAnne Kane, General Manager PSSD (Property and Support Services Department)