Leicester's hospitals use exercise to recreate pressures and strengthen plans
During Exercise Twin Ares, responders from the University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL) used a special training kit to simulate hospital departments, casualties, equipment and resources, helping them to visualise and plan their response as if it was a real-life emergency.
Nurses, doctors and others from front line departments were involved in managing casualties and deciding how resources should be used to deliver the best outcomes for patients, victims, families and staff.
The exercise was designed to test operational response and to strengthen multi-agency working, including coordination and information sharing across numerous partner organisations.
Sarah Taylor, Director of Urgent and Emergency Care at UHL, said: "Thank you to all those who contributed to this excellent exercise and for the support to run the event from the LRF and UKHSA. The day enabled the teams across many services and departments to test our plans.
"There was lots of learning which we will now be able to review and incorporate to strengthen our plans further."
Mo Patel, Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Manager at UHL, said: “It's not often we get the opportunity to test our plans with so many operational, tactical and strategic staff and are able to recreate some of the pressures we would face if this was to happen for real.
This was a great opportunity for clinical and operational colleagues to coordinate their response to a complex incident and to use any learnings to ensure we’re as prepared as possible to provide safe, effective care.”