An EMERGO exercise to help our A&Es plan for a major incident took place last Tuesday.

EMERGO exercises are recognised worldwide, and are simulation-based scenarios that are used for education and training in emergency and disaster management. 

The set-up of the new ED at HRI was tested during the exercise, which was based on the scenario of a major crane accident which had injured 47 people. Alongside our ED colleagues were medical, nursing and clinical reps from theatres, ICU, SDECs, frailty, radiology, pharmacy, transfusion and the clinical site team.

Colleagues were tasked with triaging the 47 additional injured casualties, whilst managing the 70 patients already in the department. 

The exercise was designed by General Manager for Resilience, Acute Flow and Transformation, Sarah Rothery, and Trust Emergency Planning Officer, Karen Bates, with facilitation support from Clinical Director for ED, Dr Huw Masson, and ED Matron, Liane King, to ensure things ran smoothly.  The resources we created to be able to run this exercise can be used in future exercises.

Karen Bates, Trust Emergency Planning Officer, said: "This was something new for the Trust, and most of the people that attended had never done something like this before. It was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the set-up of the new ED in a major incident, the flow of casualties and the management of existing patients should we need to put these practices into place. 

"The main learning outcome was that every service should look to have their own tailored major incident action plan which could help them to understand the changes in procedure that may need to be put into place in the event of a major incident declaration."

Further simulation exercises will take place later in the year.