The Sichuan (China) and L'Aquila (Italy) earthquakes have again highlighted the question of our preparedness for natural hazards. Within a few seconds, an earthquake can demolish many buildings, destroy infrastructure, and kill and injure thousands of people. In order to reduce the impact of earthquakes on human life and to prepare hospitals to cope with future disasters, this paper discusses earthquake-related damage to healthcare facilities. It investigates the damage to 34 healthcare facilities in seven countries caused by nine earthquakes between 1994 and 2004, in order to determine common and specific issues. The investigation shows that structural and architectural damage tended to be different and specific to the situation, while utility supplies and equipment damage were similar in most cases and some common trends emerged.

Purpose:The purpose of this paper is to explore UK healthcare resilience strategies; define gaps and provide suggestions based on international best practice. Design/methodology/approach:The study adopted a pluralistic qualitative research approach to achieve its purpose including: research papers, governmental and non-governmental reports, code and guidance documents, and databases. In addition, two case studies were visited in May 2009: the first was one of the major hospitals in the UK; and the second is a major health facility located at the south of Taiwan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the hospitals responsible and/or emergency officers to clarify the strategies setup to respond to emergencies. Findings:The results show that despite the "robust" emergency planning in the UK, many issues could have been avoided if international experience was reviewed carefully. This is due to the failure of not working closer with multi-disciplinary experts, who provide technical and tactical help and lessons learned from international best practices, in addition to limiting accessibility of experts to information. The study also suggests that climate change must be addressed comprehensively through fusing resilience and sustainability strategies into a more comprehensive strategy of adaptation. Originality/value:The paper provides a significant contribution in terms of reducing the fragmentation of healthcare resilience related work done previously; constructive criticism of UK healthcare resilience strategies; and evidence of better practice from local and international facilities which will help in enhancing the resilience of healthcare facilities in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to: explore major and potential challenges facing healthcare facilities operation specifically those related to utility supplies; and quantify the impact of utility supplies interruption on the operation of healthcare facilities through the development of an estimation model. Design/methodology/approach – A pluralistic qualitative and quantitative research approach benefiting from an online computer program that applies the discriminant function analysis approach. Information was collected from 66 hospitals following three major earthquakes that struck northeast Japan in 2003. Findings – Analysis demonstrated that healthcare utilities face three major challenges: vulnerability of infrastructure to natural hazards; low performance of alternative sources; and lack of consideration of healthcare utility supplies in resilience codes and legislations. The study also proposed a method to estimate the impact of utility interruption of healthcare facilities. A model has been developed for the case study hospitals in Northern Japan following three major earthquakes in 2003. Practical implications – The findings are expected to raise the awareness of the critical role utilities play for the operation of healthcare facilities which will potentially lead to upgrading resilience codes and legislations. The findings are also expected to pool the literature with more information about the resilience of healthcare utility publications. Originality/value – The topic and issues discussed in this research are original based on authors’ investigations following three major earthquakes that took place in northeast Japan. The study followed a statistical approach in addressing the inter-relationship between the utility systems post disasters to develop an innovative unique index to predict the impact of utility shortage on healthcare.

Community resilience to flooding depends, to a large extent, on the participation of community members to take more responsibility for enhancing their own resilience. The perception of social responsibility (SR) which is argued to be one of the antecedents influencing individual's willingness to undertake resilient behaviours can significantly contribute to community resilience through individual and collective actions. Understanding of factors influencing the perceptions of SR of individuals within community might help with developing strategies to increase the perceptions of SR. This research explores perceptions of SR in relation to flooding for householders and local businesses and establishes their relationships with experience of flooding and demographic factors of age, gender and ethnicity. The data were obtained via a questionnaire survey of three communities in Birmingham and one community in South East London, UK, three with experience of flooding and one without. A total of 414 responses were received and used in the multiple regression analysis. The analysis identified 'experience of flooding', 'age' and 'South Asian' ethnic group as significant variables, suggesting that older individuals from South Asian ethnic groups with previous experience of flooding are likely to be more socially responsible than others without these attributes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors would like to thank the project funders, network partners, and the survey and interview participants. Their time and input has been very much appreciated and valued. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIESDr Jacqueline Glass is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Sustainable Construction in the School of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University. She specializes in the management of sustainability in construction, including sustainability strategy, product stewardship and life-cycle assessment. Dr Glass is managing research projects on responsible AbstractResponsible sourcing (RS) provides a means to manage sustainability objectives by procuring materials with a certified provenance and is demonstrated typically through an organisation's procurement policy, via purchasing decisions and practices. In the UK, the government requires that 25% of construction products shall be from RS schemes by 2012; major contractors are raising this target to 100% by 2015 for major commodities such as aggregates, metals, steel, concrete, bricks and glass. There is a lack of research on industry preparedness for RS, so this paper reports on an industry survey and interviews that set out to explore the scope of RS, its drivers, benefits and challenges. It shows that material suppliers are leading the way, and although specifiers, clients and major contractors can drive change in the supply chain, there is a problem with a lack of participation from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) which warrants further research.