The Event Healthcare Standard: Are We There Yet?

Over the past few years, the conversation around event healthcare has changed significantly. What was once often treated as a “best efforts” area of event planning is moving towards something more structured, more accountable, and more evidence based.

That change has been driven by the Manchester Arena Inquiry, which highlighted failures not only in security and communication, but also in the medical response. One of the clearest messages to come out of the Inquiry was that event healthcare needs clearer standards, clearer responsibilities, and better integration with the wider emergency response system.

The result is that a new Event Healthcare Standard is being developed for England.

While the full standard is not yet publicly available, and formal consultation is still to come, there is already enough movement in the sector for organisers to start paying attention now.

Why this is happening

The Manchester Arena Inquiry exposed what was described as a “care gap” described as delays in treatment, confusion over responsibilities, and a lack of trauma capability at the event. The broader lesson was that medical provision at events cannot rely on voluntary best effort alone. It needs to be properly planned, properly understood, and properly tested.

This does not mean the end of existing guidance. The Purple Guide and Green Guide remain important and continue to provide sector-specific guidance for cultural and sporting events. The Event Healthcare Standard is expected to sit alongside them as a foundation document, setting broader principles and expectations for healthcare provision at events in England.

What we know so far

The standard has been in development for well over a year, involving both an authorship group and a review group made up of people with practical experience across event healthcare. It has gone through extensive debate and discussion, particularly because healthcare needs vary so much between different event types.

A sporting event, a greenfield music festival, a motorsport meeting and an agricultural show do not all carry the same risks. That is one of the reasons the process has taken time.

At this stage, the standard is still under embargo. That means the full detail cannot yet be shared publicly. Focus groups and wider consultation are expected once that embargo is lifted.

What organisers should understand now is that this is not simply another document to ignore until the last minute. It is likely to shape what “good” looks like for event healthcare going forward.

The CQC and Event Medicine

Alongside the Event Healthcare Standard, the role of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is becoming increasingly relevant.

The CQC is the independent regulator for health and social care in England. Currently the treatment of disease, disorder or injury at events, have historically been excluded from regulation in temporary event settings.

That is changing.

A draft statutory instrument linked to the Health and Social Care Act proposes bringing the treatment of disease, disorder or injury at events into scope for CQC regulation. The proposed implementation date is December 2027.

For organisers,  this means you will need to understand whether the provider you are contracting is, or needs to be, CQC registered for the level of care they are delivering.

This matters particularly where care goes beyond basic first aid and into clinical treatment.

What this means on the ground

The biggest practical shift is that organisers need to become more deliberate about how they think about medical provision. Not just what they have bought in previous years, not just what another event had, and not just what somebody found in an old version of the Purple Guide.

A stronger event healthcare approach starts with three connected steps:

1. Event medical risk assessment

Every event should already have a risk assessment, but not every event currently has a medical-specific one.

An event medical risk assessment is about identifying the medical risks associated with your audience, environment and event type. That includes obvious issues such as alcohol, drugs, overnight camping and crowd behaviour, but also more practical factors like terrain, weather, site access, age profile, and previous presentation data.

The organiser should own this process, but it should be informed by medical input. A non-clinical organiser may be excellent at understanding event operations and crowd dynamics but still benefit from a healthcare perspective on what those risks mean in practice.

2. Medical needs assessment

Once the risks are understood, the next question is: what level of capability is needed to manage them?

This is the purpose of the medical needs assessment.

This is where you move beyond “we had one ambulance and three first aiders last year” and start asking more useful questions:

• What kind of presentations are likely?

• What age groups are attending?

• Is this a day event or overnight?

• Is there a history of alcohol- or drug-related demand?

• Are there likely to be slips, trips and lower limb injuries due to terrain?

• Will the event require primary care support as well as urgent response?

The point is not to buy more than you need. It is to buy the right level of provision for your event.

3. Event medical plan

Finally, the event medical provider should produce an Event Medical Plan setting out how they will deliver that capability on site.

This should include staffing, escalation routes, command and control, equipment, transfer arrangements and governance. It is the operational plan that turns your risk assessment and medical needs assessment into an operational plan.

Common Pitfalls

One of the common problems in event healthcare planning is that organisers can unintentionally over-specify the solution too early.

For example, a provider may be asked to quote for “1 ambulance, 2 paramedics and 3 first aiders” before anyone has properly looked at the event risk. That can lead to providers quoting for different assumptions, organisers comparing quotes that are not like-for-like, and plans that do not actually reflect the event.

Similarly, one provider’s idea of an ambulance may not match another provider. A fully equipped vehicle capable of safe clinical transport is not the same as a basic response vehicle or patient transport vehicle. If expectations are not clarified early, misunderstandings can follow.

Data matters more than opinion

Previous presentation data, transfer rates, common case types, welfare referrals, and patterns over time all help shape better decisions. At the moment, there is no single, uniform national dataset for event healthcare, which makes benchmarking difficult. But organisers can and should be collecting and reviewing their own data.

This helps answer questions like:

• Did our service cope with demand?

• Were we over-reliant on the local NHS?

• Were most cases managed on site?

• What type of patients did we see?

• What changed compared with previous years?

Without this, healthcare planning can become guesswork.

Harm reduction and welfare still matter

Medical provision does not sit in isolation.

A strong event healthcare approach also needs to consider the wider harm reduction strategy. Not every person who feels unwell needs the medical tent. Some need welfare support, mental health support, safeguarding input, or simply a safe place to recover.

That means organisers should also be thinking about:

• welfare provision

• mental health support

• communication to attendees about what services are available

• how medical, welfare and safeguarding teams work together

Healthcare works best when it is integrated with the wider support system on site.

Contracts matter more than people think

Another area often overlooked is the provider contract.

When things are going well, contracts can feel like admin. When things go wrong, they matter a great deal.

A robust contract should set out more than just “medical cover will be provided for X amount.” It should define expectations clearly, including:

• what is being provided

• the required capability

• governance expectations

• data and reporting requirements

• escalation arrangements

• review processes

It does not need to be overly complicated. It does need to be clear.

So, are we there yet?

Not quite.

The Event Healthcare Standard is not yet published. The CQC changes are not yet fully in force. There are still questions to answer, including how the final framework will land in practice and how it will sit alongside existing event guidance.

But the sector is no longer at the stage of saying, “we’ll wait and see.”

The right question now is not whether things are changing. They are.

The question is whether organisers are starting to prepare early enough to understand what they are buying, what their provider is delivering, and whether their event healthcare plans would stand up to scrutiny if they ever needed to.

Because when things go wrong at events, they tend to go wrong very quickly.

About the Author
Melissa is a Strategic Health Advisor and founder of Event Care Solutions, specialising in event healthcare planning, governance, and regulatory readiness.

She works with event organisers to help them understand the Event Healthcare Standard and what that means for them on the ground, translating requirements into clear, practical approaches that stand up to scrutiny and support safe delivery.

Melissa also supports event medical providers through the CQC registration process, helping them prepare for upcoming inspections and align with the latest CQC guidance.

If you’d like to understand how these changes affect your event or service or want support to make sure, you’re ready. Get in touch.