Put the farm's emergency plan on every worker's phone

Every farm has an emergency plan somewhere. It is usually in a folder in the office, which is the last place anyone is standing when they need it.

The person who needs it is in a paddock, possibly new to the farm, and trying to tell an operator where they are. Phase puts what they need on the phone already in their pocket.

One page, for everyone on the farm

Emergency is one of the large buttons at the top of More, on the phone and on the computer. Everyone on the farm can open it, employees and advisers included.

There is one card for each property, with a switcher at the top, and the phone remembers the last one you looked at.

What is on the card

From top to bottom:

• Call 000, as one large button, with a note that 112 also works from any mobile.
• Other numbers, each with a call button: the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26, the SES on 132 500 and the Police Assistance Line on 131 444.
• Where you are. The property's name and address, or the directions the farm has saved for emergencies.
• Show my location. This reads the phone's GPS once and shows latitude and longitude, with a copy button, so it can be read out to the operator. Nothing is saved.
• Meeting point and UHF channel, if the farm has set them.
• The emergency plan itself, opened right there.
• Farm contacts, each with a call button.

It works with no signal

The last details that loaded stay on the phone. With no signal, the card still shows the meeting point, the plan's written steps and the numbers, marked as saved on that phone with the time.

That is worth testing on your own farm. Have each person open the page once while they have signal, so it is there when they do not.

Setting it up

Owners, managers and anyone who looks after safety records can edit each property's details: the address or directions, the meeting point, the UHF channel and the contacts list.

A contact can be someone already in Safety & People, in which case a changed phone number follows them. Or it can be another number you type in, such as the local hospital, a neighbour or the vet.

The plan itself is added in Safety & People → Library as an Emergency plan, for one property or for all of them.

What staff can and cannot see

Employees see the people on the contacts list and their phone numbers, and nothing else from Safety & People. A person's own next of kin is never shown on this page.

Fed by the records you already keep

The emergency page is not one more thing to keep up to date. Phase is one app for the whole farm, so the page draws on what is already there: each property's location from Farms & Fields, people and phone numbers from Safety & People, and the emergency plan from the safety library. Change a phone number once and it is right everywhere.

The page is a help, not the plan

Phase holds the plan and puts it within reach. It does not write the plan, and it does not replace training, an induction or a first aid kit. In an emergency, call 000 first.

To know who is on the farm in the first place, see a sign-on board for farm workers.