Recommendation CR8: Survivability advice to persons in distress
From The Cranston Inquiry Report, published 5 February 2026.
Recommendation
HM Coastguard should amend its existing policies to incorporate the need to provide more comprehensive advice about survivability to people in distress at sea.
In brief (written by this site)
The Inquiry asked HM Coastguard to incorporate more survivability advice into its policies. In October 2026, the Cabinet Office reported that the recommendation had been marked as complete under an ongoing approach, with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency establishing an internal monitoring and verification process (Cabinet Office, Oct 2026). In July 2026, the Department for Transport stated that standard operating procedures had been updated in May 2024 to align with international requirements and cover survivability factors, survival time predictions, hypothermia, and heat stress (Department for Transport response, Jul 2026).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 16 Oct 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
HMCG Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) were reviewed and updated in May 2024, providing assurance that they align to internationally recognised requirements contained within the IMO’s IAMSAR Manual. The standard operating procedure covers factors that may affect survivability, predicting survival times, information and characteristics on hypothermia and heat stress. These are available to staff through an online management system, which hosts operational detail, procedure, process, and training content. This information is easily accessible, and the information is shared and cascaded across teams for consistency. SOPs are regularly reviewed and updated on an ongoing basis to keep up to date with both internal and international developments, lessons learned and international best practice and guidance. For example, regular operation standards and performance reviews and operational learning reviews help to ensure that SOPs and guidance remain up to date. When updates are made to a SOP these are listed in an operational update message for officers to see on the front page of the Coastguard Information Portal, alerting them to the update. Updates are reflected in CPD and exercises, as well as being highlighted through participation in reviews and the reports from these.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: Cranston Inquiry Report: Interim Response (CP 1635), presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for Transport in July 2026. The words are the Department for Transport's. The paper describes HM Coastguard, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch in the third person ("HMCG recognises ..."), so the site files each passage under the Department, not under the body the recommendation is addressed to.
Delivery
Cabinet Office says completed (5 October 2026)
The Department for Transport published its interim response to the Cranston Inquiry in July 2026, which included updates against this recommendation. This update noted that many of the recommendations - including this one - have been marked as complete but are necessarily based on an on-going approach, rather than having a single end point. The Department (DfT), the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), and His Majesty’s Coastguard (HMCG) are committed to on-going learning and improvement, and will regularly review processes and practices, learning from best practice, to ensure that they are fit to meet the evolving challenges of maritime search and rescue (SAR). Due to the operational and ongoing nature of these recommendations, the MCA has established an internal process of monitoring, verifying and reporting against recommendations that are its responsibility, noting that many recommendations require an on-going approach rather than reaching a single, fixed point.
From: Cranston Inquiry Recommendations Dashboard, October 2026 (data file)
Site note: The dashboard gives each recommendation its own cell. The cells for recommendations 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 15 and 16 carry the same words, so the same passage is recorded on each.
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department for Transport
Response - Cabinet Office
Delivery statement