How GIS is supporting NHS Emergency Planning in the South West

Trevor Foster

GIS Manager

NHS South West Commissioning Support

How GIS is supporting NHS Emergency Planning

in the South West

HealthGIS Maps

• How GIS supports NHS Emergency Planning in the South

West, particularly the flooding on the Somerset levels during

the winter

• HealthGIS on-line mapping portal development, using

Cadcorp Web Map Layers

SWCS - GIS and Mapping Service

• Formerly Avon IM&T Consortium - moved to South West

CSU in April 2013

• Supporting NHS; Avon Health Authority – Primary Care

Trusts – Clinical Commissioning Groups since 1995

• Ordnance Survey OpenData & PSMA (2010/11)

• Ordnance Survey Licensed Partner – May 2014

• Growth in demand from wider NHS

• Developed team of GIS analysts/developers

• Development of HealthGIS Maps (on-line mapping portal)

• Bristol, North Somerset, South Glos, Somerset CCGs

• NHS England Area Team (Bristol, North Somerset, Somerset,

South Gloucestershire)

• Other Area Teams – East Anglia (Serco), Shropshire & Staffs

• Strategic Clinical Network (SW) – formerly Avon, Somerset, Wilts +

Peninsula, Dorset, 3 Counties (Glos) cancer networks

• Public Health depts in Local Authorities – Avon, Wiltshire, Dorset

• Mental Health Trust (NW London)

• Community Health – Bristol, North Somerset, South

Gloucestershire, Sirona Care & Health (Bath)

• Primary Care Commissioning (PCC)

• Ad-hocs; Hospital Trusts, BBC Children in Need, NHS Scotland

Customers

HealthGIS maps –

online portal

• First version developed in 2010 -

still in use

• Cadcorp GeognoSIS, Web Map

Viewer

– Requires component

installations and

configuration on client PC

• New Cadcorp environment

released in 2013; Web Map

Layers

– No component installation

– Any browser

– Faster and easier to use

HealthGIS maps – online portal

• Business case; the cost of the Web Map layers software

would be less than cost of IT support for community users

• Web Map Layers implemented end 2013, administrator

training January 2014

• Plan to migrate existing projects during 2014

• An initial candidate for migration – “Emergency Planning”

project

• Initial development in January and then “tried it out” on

the Emergency Planning Team. They found it so useful to

support work around Somerset levels flooding, they’ve

been using it since

Supporting Emergency Planning

“The SWCSUs HealthGIS system was an invaluable element of

the NHS response to the Somerset Floods providing a simple but

efficient means of identifying flooded and at risk areas and cross

checking these with vulnerable patients and health assets”

Simon Steele

NHS England Emergency Planning Team

Inter-agency collaboration

• Within the Tactical Coordinating Group (Blue-light

services, LA, NHS, Environment Agency, Red Cross,

Military)

• Maps of at risk postcodes shared (GPs, Somerset

Community Partnership, A&E Hospital) as we were the

first to produce the information

• Also identified other agency assets (e.g. electricity sub

stations in these areas)

• Able to share data with other agencies in a visual, easy to

understand format

Demonstrate example scenarios

1. Identify and evacuate ‘at risk’ properties

2. Water mains failure – search for potentially affected

health assets; GP surgeries, Care Homes, Minor Injuries

Unit

http://nww.healthgis.nhs.uk/

http://nww.healthgis.nhs.uk/wmlmaps/EmergencyPlanning/


http://nww.healthgis.nhs.uk/wmlmaps/EmergencyPlanning/

• HealthGIS welcome page

• Open project “Emergency

Planning”

HealthGIS online mapping portal

• Alerts provided by

Environment Agency

• Search for

Postcode/address *

• Search by

placename, service

site name

Properties at risk of flooding

• Zoom to location

• About this location *

• Configured for chosen

areas:

• NHS areas; CCG, Area

Team, GP practice

• Experian Mosaic group

and type – “provides

an understanding of

the types of

property/people”


• Map Layers

• Environment Agency

Flood Zone 3 (WMS)

• Layer Information *

(metadata)


• Somerset flooding

February 2014 (from

OpenStreetMap)


• Zoom to location (large

scale)

• Properties/postcodes

cross-referenced with

other NHS agencies

(GPs, community health)

• Identify vulnerable

population or patients

with healthcare needs


• Additional reference

layers

• Experian Mosaic


• Map Feature

Information

• Group D “Successful

professionals living in

suburban or semi-rural

homes”



layers

• Experian Mosaic

• Map feature

information

• Group M “Elderly

people reliant on state

support”


~500m


layers

• Postcode polygons

• Greyscale basemap



layers

• Census (Output Area)

population statistics

• AddressBase property

information, incl.

property type, UPRN


• Electricity sub-station

• NHS team notified

Western Power

• New layer from

AddressBase, filtered

by class “CU01”


“patients requiring chemotherapy who needed boat transport to get

them to hospital”

“a patient who required an electrical hoist in an area at risk of power

cuts, which required a generator to be delivered”

“the system even worked on a 3G connection using a mobile phone as

a hotspot connection”

Results/Outcomes from NHS Emergency Planning Team

• Risks of losing water

supply, further flooding

• All healthcare services

layers

• ‘eyeballing’ revealed

assets at risk included;

GP surgeries, Care

Homes, a Minor Injuries

Unit

Risk of Water Mains Failure

• Langport area

• Contact details

information


• Query map objects

• Spatial and attribute

queries

• Electricity sub-stations

in flood area

• Export to CSV file


• Annotate the map

• Draw polygon and text

• Print map

• Print to PDF service


• Layered PDF

• Legend

• Scale bar

Future Development

• Expanding the project for other scenarios (e.g. traffic accidents,

pollution, pandemic disease, UXB…)

– Emergency Treatment Centres

– Accessibility to all Hospitals (drive-time and blue-light travel times)

– Locations of Mass Casualty Vehicles

– Locations of Emergency Dressing Packs

– Motorway junctions, other possible evacuation sites

– Pandemic Flu Prophylaxis Centres (including using GIS analysis to

identify optimum locations)

– Key infrastructure (e.g. Hinkley Point nuclear power station)

– Mental Health inpatient facilities

• Add layer of patient locations (with appropriate security) for

immediate access to relevant patient information in impacted

areas, e.g. “Vulnerable people”

• Further information?

• Contact us at [email protected]

or [email protected]

Telephone: 0117 9002490

• Visit our website:

http://www.healthgis.nhs.uk

http://nww.healthgis.nhs.uk (NHS staff only)

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.healthgis.nhs.uk/


How GIS is supporting NHS Emergency Planning in the South West

Health & Medicine

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