Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) and Interoperable Capabilities Annual Self-Assessment Outcome.

Meeting: Trust Board – Public Meeting

Date: 10 September 2025

Report Title: Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) and Interoperable Capabilities Annual Self-Assessment Outcome.

Agenda Item: PUB25/09/4.2

Author: Jon Moore, Deputy Chief of Clinical Operations

Lead Director: Darren Meads, Chief Operating Officer

Purpose: Decision/Approval

Assurance: Substantial

Link to CQC domain:

• Caring
• Responsive
• Effective
• Well-led
• Safe

Link to EEAST Strategic Mission:

• Patient Mission
• Partnership Mission
• People Mission
• Productivity Mission

Link to Strategic Risk:

• SR1 Demand and Capacity
• SR2 Quality Governance

Equality Impact Assessment: No negative impact identified

Previously considered by: Head of Emergency Preparedness and Specialist Operations and General Manager, Resilience and Specialist Operations , Deputy Chief of Clinical Operations, Chief Operating Officer/Accountable Emergency Officer, Executive Leadership Team and Audit and Risk Committee.

Purpose: The purpose of this is to advise the Trust Board of the outcome of the 2025/26 Emergency preparedness, Resilience and Response Core Standards and the Interoperable Capabilities annual self-assessment and to request this be approved as a true and accurate record of our compliance against the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 statutory and legislative requirements.

Recommendation: The Trust Board is requested to review the 2025/26 EPRR Core Standards and Interoperable Capabilities self-assessment and approve the indicated rating of Substantial Compliance for NHS EPRR Core Standards and Substantial Compliance for the Interoperable Capabilities.

Executive Summary:

The East of England Ambulance Service is required, as a Category 1 responder, under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004, by NHS England, to complete an annual self-assessment assurance process against the NHS Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Core Standards and Interoperable Capabilities.

The 2025/26 self-assessment against the NHS EPRR Core Standards has achieved Substantial Compliance – this is the same as the 2024/25 self-assessment. There is one non-compliant standard which is reference 5, Domain Governance – EPRR Resource; “The Board is satisfied that the organisation has sufficient and appropriate resource to ensure it can fully discharge its EPRR duties”.

The Trust Board are asked to note and approve the self-assessment rating at which point the self-assessment and associated documents will be submitted to our Lead ICB – Suffolk and North Essex, this is to be done no later than 27th October 2025. Once the ICB has completed a check and challenge meeting with EEAST on the 6th of November, the summary of the agreed rating will be presented to the NHSE Regional EPRR Team for onward processing and presentation to the NHSE National EPRR Team and the National NHSE Board.

This report describes the outcome of the self-assessment, key issues, identified risks this relates to and action to be taken.

Introduction / Background:

NHS England is responsible for gaining assurance on the preparedness of the NHS to respond to incidents and emergencies, while maintaining the ability to remain resilient and continue to deliver critical services. This is achieved through the Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) annual assurance process. This process is directly aligned to the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 and therefore The Trust, as a category one responder, has a legal responsibility to meet the standards and is subject to the full set of civil protection duties.

NHS England EPRR Core Standards

The NHS core standards for EPRR are the basis of the assurance process. The core standards can be found in the NHS core standards for EPRR self-assessment tool (separate document in support of this paper).

The Trust is required to undertake a self-assessment against the individual core standards and rate compliance for each.

The compliance level for each standard is defined as:

Interoperable Capabilities

In addition to the EPRR Core Standards, all Ambulance Trusts are required to undertake a self-assessment against the interoperable capabilities. These are a set of specialist capabilities which are nationally specified under the NHS England EPRR Framework. These capabilities are interoperable between services. They must be maintained according to strict national standards to ensure they can be combined safely to provide an effective national response to certain types of incidents.

The interoperable capabilities include:

• Hazardous area response teams (HART)
• Special operations response teams (SORT)
• Mass casualty vehicles (MCV)
• Command and Control (C2)
• Joint emergency services interoperability principals (JESIP)

Organisational assurance rating

The overall rating for the Trust for the Core Standards and Interoperable Capabilities is as follows:

Overall Assessment: Substantially Compliant

Interoperable Assessment: Substantially Compliant

Key Issues / Risks:

Risks related to the EPRR Core Standards and Interoperable capabilities

The compliance with the EPRR Core Standards and Interoperable Capabilities is a statutory obligation under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. The risks are described within the Trust risk register as follows.

• EPR0001 – Regulatory Compliance
• EPR0003 – Flu, Pandemic and High Consequence Infectious Disease Planning
• EPR0006 – Command and Control requirements
• EPR0010 – Loss of modular training for HART Paramedics until October 2025
• EOR001 – Lack of Strategic Medical Advisors
• EME0017 - Lack of Dispatch Business Continuity contingency within EOC
• EME0019 – Emergency Operations Centres Business Continuity
• EME0024 – Inadequate paper working training for EOC staff (call handling and Dispatch)

Next steps

Following the approval from the Trust Board the self-assessment, along with the required documentation, will be submitted to the Suffolk and Northeast Essex ICB and the Regional NHS England EPRR Team.

On the 6th November 2025 the Chief Operating Officer, Deputy Chief and Clinical Operations and the Head of Emergency Preparedness and Specialist Operations will meet with the Lead Commissioner and the Regional EPRR Team to undergo a confirm and challenge session where the self-assessed rating will be reviewed (challenged if appropriate) and approved. In December, the ICB will submit a system assurance report to NHS England Regional Team who will then submit the regional assurance ratings to the National NHS England EPRR Team.

Options:

The EPRR self-assessment has been reviewed and approved by the Head of Emergency Preparedness and Specialist Operations, the Deputy Chief of Clinical Operations, the Chief Operating Officer (Accountable Emergency Officer), Executive Leadership Team and the Audit and Risk Committee.

The Trust Board is requested to review and approve the EPRR Core Standards and Interoperable Capabilities 2025/26 self-assessment for submission to the Lead Commissioner and NHS England Regional EPRR in line with the timescales already mentioned.

How does this report link with EEAST’s vision, purpose and values?

This report links to the overall Trust purpose to care for our patients, our communities and each other, making every minute count to save lives and improve outcomes for patients. Where these standards cannot be improved, we could potential fail in our purpose to save life during major and significant incidents. Our vision is to provide high quality urgent and emergency care which may be compromised where the Resilience and Specialist Operations Teams are unable to deliver all that is required.

APPENDIX A

CORE STANDARDS and Interoperable Capabilities