Is it needed?

An interesting question came up in a Quality meeting yesterday - do we need an Emergency Procedure that covers things like power outages? Sure, we need to know what to do about it (how do we keep refrigerated items cold, is it going to affect incubators, do we need to shut down the server?), but, generally speaking, all these questions come up and are answered adequately without the need for a formal SOP.

Not only that, but we've never yet got it wrong. So, do we need it? I asked Darth Chaos this morning. She paused for a few minutes, and decided that the problem could wait since, as I've already said, we tend to deal with these questions adequately anyway.

Why is the question coming up now? Well, the summary is that we are drawing too much power from the grid (long story.). Actew are coming around sometime in December (I've heard two dates so far) to replace cabling, with a view to preventing us from shutting down the neighbourhood (we've blacked out the area more than once). Since we know in advance, we can do things like borrowing generators to run a couple of fridges.

I have a feeling that we probably should look at the situation, and sort out an SOP to go with it. But, as Darth Chaos has already said, it can wait until after Christmas. If nothing else, it'll give us all time to think about the problem a bit more.