Terror attacks : Recommendations for cooperation between police, hospitals and non-police security services

Abstract

The risk of terrorist attacks in the Federal Republic of Germany is present and is currently increasing. Publicly funded acute care hospitals and their owners are involved in disaster control as part of their remit and are responsible for taking comprehensive precautions to ensure their operational capability in the event of disasters. This mandate must also be ensured in the event of terrorist attacks and amok incidents. For this purpose, an optimal cooperation between preclinical and clinical care is indispensable. Recommended actions for collaboration between nonclinical and clinical planning to manage amass casualty incident in terrorist life-threatening response situations are presented. The Inter-Hospital Security Conference Baden-Württemberg (IHSC BW) is an association of representatives of acute hospitals in Baden-Württemberg, the Ministry of the Interior, Digitalization and Migration Baden-Württemberg, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Integration Baden-Württemberg, the State Police Headquarters Baden-Württemberg and the Baden-Württemberg Hospital Association. From 2018 to 2020, the IHSC BW developed recommendations for action on cooperation between police, hospitals and non-police emergency response. The recommendations for action were agreed by the group members in 6 working sessions and initialled in two subsequent video conferences. Arecommendation was considered adopted when the IHSC BW plenary assembly finally gave its approval with an absolute majority. Competence-based interface solutions for asmooth cooperation between prehospital and hospital management in the care of patients who have become victims of aterrorist attack are to be demanded. For preliminary planning, the establishment of alocal safety conference at the county disaster control authority level with the following participants is recommended: disaster control authority, fire department, regional police headquarters, chief emergency physician, rescue services and disaster control officers of affected clinics. It is recommended to set up ajoint command and situation center (CSC), where management personnel from the police, rescue service, fire department and disaster control can meet to organize the handling of the incident jointly, competently and without loss of time. From this CSC, aliaison officer should then provide the clinics with information at regular intervals. Exercises should take place regularly. Cross-organizational exercises are particularly important, and this is one of the tasks of the local safety conference.