1. Emergency response in the UK The British Red Cross is the UK’s leading emergency response charity, helping communities prepare for, respond to and recover from crises. Thousands of trained emergency response volunteers are ready to provide practical and emotional support at a moment’s notice. We also represent charities in national forums, across all areas of the UK but Londoners such as the National Police Chiefs’ Council civil expressed the greatest concern (63%). contingencies meeting, we chair the National The community reserve volunteer programme Voluntary Sector Civil Protection Working is a new opportunity that allows local people to Group and sit on local multi-agency emergency get involved and make a difference if and when planning forums across the UK. disaster strikes in their area. In 2017 we mobilised hundreds of Proportion of people who have staff and volunteers to respond to witnessed or experienced an almost 1,500 incidents across the emergency in their community length and breadth of the UK. Our emergency response reams assisted more than 9,300 people in situations ranging from fires, to power outages, to flooding and search and rescue operations. It can be easy to assume that emergencies only happen in places far from our own homes. But our research shows that one in five people (21%) in the UK have witnessed or experienced a major emergency in their local area, with severe weather and flooding being the most common. This rises to one in four people in Scotland (27%), Northern Ireland (27%), South West England (27%), and Yorkshire and the Humber (25%). Not only is the UK no stranger to major emergencies such as severe weather and flooding, but our research also indicates that the incidents in London and Manchester last summer have led to a heightened awareness of emergency response in the UK. More than 26+% 21-25% 16-20% 0-15% half of people (53%) feel it’s more likely Source: Reference 1. that their community could experience a To view the data used to create the major incident in the future, following the above map, please see the Appendix . devastating events of 2017. This was common 5