Emergency Planning
An emergency plan is a plan you set out for the care of an adult or a child in case of emergencies. It makes provisions for occasions when you are unable to fulfil your caring role, and it sets out the practical arrangements for short-term, unplanned periods.
Having a plan in place can stop an emergency becoming a crisis and can give you and the person you care for peace of mind. Emergency planning is relevant to all carers, irrespective of the age of the carer, the age of the person they care for or the health needs or disability the cared-for person has.
A carer told us how having an Emergency Plan in place helped them : -
"Having the Emergency Plan was a life saver for me when my mum took a turn for the worst last year. I was able to give it to the ambulance crew with all her history and details of medication and who to contact. My mum was non responsive and with me not being able to go with her (due to covid) it was too much information to try and give the ambulance crew verbally. The Plan meant they had all the information with them when they arrived at the hospital. I would recommend anyone that's a carer to have one of these plans ready to use - you never know when it may come in handy.’’
An example of an Emergency Plan, produced by Enable called "Who will pick up the pieces when you can’t be there?" can be found here
VAS can help you complete the plan. Please contact us to send you out a pack or talk through the toolkit if you are happy to use the online version.
Carers UK have also put together some information on what you might need to consider which can be found here