Emergency duty officers

Instructions for emergency duty officers


Role

Emergency duty officers are AU employees who are responsible for initiating the chain of telephone calls at AU (telephone chain) in the event of acute threats to life and property, such as fire, threats made against AU or major accidents. They are responsible for taking the call from the call centre operator (cf. the telephone chain) in the event of acute threats to life and property and for ensuring that contact is established to the appointed contact persons, i.e. one person from each of the following areas: Building operations (Estates Facilities), communication and management.

If the call/message does not come from the call centre, it is important that the call centre is informed as quickly as possible that a call regarding an emergency has been received, in order to avoid confusion which might lead people to think that a number of incidents are taking place at the same time.


Call

The emergency duty officer obtains relevant information about the incident in order to initiate the chain of telephone calls:

  • What?
  • Where?
  • Address?
  • Who reported the incident? Is the person in question present on site? How can this person be contacted?
  • Has anyone called 112?


Assessment

Assess whether it is necessary to obtain additional information before activating the emergency response. In some cases, a limited emergency response may be sufficient, for example e.g. in the form of information and/or damage service. When in doubt – contact the university director and agree on the extent of the emergency response.

 

  

How to start the telephone chain

1. Call the contact person for building operations

The head of building services for the area in question should be contacted first.

If it is not clear which area(s) is/are affected by the emergency, attempts to reach the heads of building services should be made in the following order:

A. Head of building services, Arts
B. Head of building services, Aarhus BSS
C. Head of building services, Health
D. Head of building services, ST
E. Alternatively, contact the building inspector for the area in question.

Note: The building inspectors are not always on call, which may mean that calls outside normal working hours might not be answered.

2. Call the contact person for communication

Attempts to reach a contact person should be made in the following order:

A. AU’s head of press and communication
B. Press officer from the Rector’s Office
C. Local head of communication

3. Call the contact person for the management

Attempts to reach a contact person should be made in the following order:

A. University director
B. The university director’s secretary
C. Head of staff at the Rector's Office 
D. Employee at the Rector’s Office

4. Inform other potential emergency duty officers

Call or send a text message to other emergency duty officers to inform them that you have assumed the role of emergency duty officer in this emergency – in case of additional calls from the call centre about the same emergency.

5. Coordinate the response team and the emergency management team

The emergency duty officer receives information from the university director and AU’s head of press and communication about who is part of the emergency management team and the emergency response group.

When the information has been collected, an email should be sent to "#AU Kriseberedskabsgruppen" (Display name in Outlook). The subject line of the email must start with "Krisemelding" (emergency alert). 

The email must contain the names of the members of the two groups and the meeting points for both groups.

6. Inform the Switchboard

Inform the Switchboard (tel.: 8715 0000) of who is the contact person for the press and who is the head of the emergency response effort, in relation to handling calls from public emergency services, unless AU’s head of press and communication and the university director are handling these roles.