The Orsec-Novi plan (, \\), or short Novi plan (, \\), is a French emergency plan used for a mass casualty incident (mascal), i.e. if an emergency has a significant number of casualties in a limited area . Its aim is to organize the rescue resources to cope with the concentrated casualties. It was formerly called red plan (, \\); "Orsec" stands for "rescue management" (organisation des secours), and "novi" for "multiple casualties" (nombreuses victimes).
It is different from the French white plan (), which is designed to face a sudden and unpredicted rise of the activity of a hospital. Since 2007, it is part from the Orsec plan (), which is generally designed to face insufficient emergency resources. In a Novi plan, the emergency resources are sufficient. The difficulty is coordinating them.
The white plan is often launched along with the Novi plan in order to face the massive arrival of casualties evacuated by the Novi plan.
The Novi plan is based on four concepts: The resources should be rationally organized: The resources should not hamper each other, or deplete resources needed by another emergency. This implies coordination of the different forces (firefighters, samu/emergency medical service, police), and assignment of roles (hierarchical sorting); There should be two chains of rescue, one focused on managing the site, the other focused on caring for the casualties; A field hospital (or advanced medical post) should be installed next to the casualties, to perform triage and stabilisation before the evacuation; There should be two commands, one on-site that deals with the management of the rescue operations, the other in a remote site (usually the préfecture) that deals with the reinforcement, the logistics...
History
The "plan rouge" was created in 1978 by the fire brigade of Paris (Brigade des sapeurs-pompiers de Paris, BSPP), after explosions during an urban fire (rue Raynouard, Paris 16e), that resulted in 13 dead and a great number of casualties. The name "red plan" refers to the traditional color of the French firefighters, and to the color of danger (blood/fire).
It was then extended to the whole French territory by 28 October 1986 the circulaire (ministerial instruction) #86-318 (ministry of Interior/French Home Office). The red plan is defined by each département and thus can slightly vary from a dépertement to the other, but all the red plans are very similar.
Following the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the French authorities considere the possibility of several simultaneous terrorist acts and create the "plan rouge alpha" (alpha red plan). It is implemented for the first time for the November 2015 Paris attacks.
Since 2007, the plan rouge is a specific case of the plan Orsec.
Activation
The Novi plan is started in case of a disaster with limited consequences (accident catastrophique à effet limité, acel), when there are – or when there might be – numerous casualties. This plan is started by the préfet of the département (or, in case of Paris and its suburbs, by the préfet de police of Paris).
These situations are various: fire of great intensity with immediate risks for the population building collapse road accident, train accident, or airplane accident criminal act (collective aggression by firearm, explosives, hostage-taking, terrorist attack...) industrial injury natural disaster
The prerequisite for a Novi plan is a great number of casualties. This estimation can vary from département to département. In Paris, the following rules apply: the situation involves a field hospital, and at least 15 persons must be evacuated to a hospital. The notion of "number of casualties" is different depending on the situation, and is evaluated from the initial assessment (the Novi plan must be started quickly, i.e. before all the casualties are counted): for a fire, the number of casualties in the initial assessment is multiplied by 2: i.e. when the rescuers arrive, and count 6 to 8 casualties, there are usually about 15 casualties by the end of the operation;. for a terrorist bombing, the multiplication factor is 3, sometimes 4 or 5; for the other accidents, amongst which the public transport accident, the factor is 3 to 4. In some specific situations, the risks (risk of explosion, of intoxication etc.), or the organizational constraints can lead to a Novi plan although there are only few casualties.
General concept
In case of a Novi plan, it is necessary to simultaneously: fight the initial disaster and its direct and indirect consequences; extract the casualties from the hostile environment; care for the casualties.