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Entrance to the A&E department

Case Study: Validating Plans Through Exercises, St Thomas' Hospital
Exercise Unified Response

Exercise Story Board

The planning team – clear objectives and extensive controls. Briefing from the EPRR team and CEO 

Exercise unified response briefing
Exercise unified response, briefing by CEO

As part of a 3 day national exercise – Dartford power station is mocked up as the scene

Staged incident site
Wrecked railway carriages at the incident site

Casualties are extricated from the wreckage and hospital staff put on standby (day 1)

'Injured' extricated from the wreckage
Notice to hospital staff advisng the exercise

 Breaking news sets the scene, “Major Incident Declared” alerts are sent out, and “casualties” arrive at the Emergency Department (still functioning as usual).

Breaking news on TV
'Casualties' arrve at A&E

The Emergency Department team follow “Major incident declared” protocols.

Major incident command centre
Early 'casualties' are triaged

Ambulance team handover and triage by the ED team. A full clinical simulation takes place to test all aspects of the critical care pathway.

Ambulance crews hand over to emergency department staff
A full clinical simulation

The Gold and Silver command teams are put through their paces, reporting to NHS England and with additional injects simulating disruption to IT systems and blood stocks, and from media interest.

Gold and silver commanders issue instructions
Disruptions to IT systems, blood supplies, and more, are introduced to the exercise

Exercise Co-Director Justin Cuckow responds to media enquiries in a live session.

Media intervies are part of the exercise

The “casualties” make a remarkable recovery and are debriefed to understand their experience.

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EUR casualty.jpg

A clinically led “hot debrief” captures learning to inform the post exercise report. This is issued promptly and captures good practice and improvements.

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EUR Final report.jpg
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