Business Continuity Planning

Business continuity planning ensures the availability of government services, programs and operations, including all resources involved, and the timely resumption of services in the event of a major failure, emergency or disaster. Chapter 16 of the government Core Policy and Procedures Manual requires each Ministry to initiate and manage a comprehensive Business Continuity Management (BCM) program that includes planning, developing, implementing and monitoring business continuity and recovery activities.

BCM programs are to be in accordance with Emergency Management BC and Government Security Office business continuity standards and guidelines. Under these guidelines Ministries are required to conduct strategic risk and business-impact analyses to identify risks, apply risk mitigation treatments and develop strategies to reduce the likelihood and consequence of a business interruption.

Recent events have demonstrated the need for a sector-based approach to BCM. Business interruptions seldom impact a single entity within a sector but have wide-scale implications due to the interconnected nature of modern systems. As such, health emergency management is looking to broaden its approach to comprehensive emergency management by integrating BCM across a wider range of health sector organizations. The creation of a Health Sector Business Continuity forum will better enable senior decision makers to identify issues that are relevant to the health sector and provide opportunities for information sharing and collaboration.