Exercise brings together teams to put our Incident Respond Plan to the test

An exercise which tested our reaction to a major incident was put into action earlier this week.

Operation Canine Tusk was set up to look at our operational, tactical and strategic responses through an imaginary emergency.

The scenario focused on an explosion involving chemicals at Hendon Docks in Sunderland.

The morning session looked at how those involved in services at Sunderland Royal Hospital would react, followed by an afternoon which looked at how South Tyneside District Hospital would respond.

As the event unfolded, the number of adult and paediatric patients rose and more details of the incident were revealed to look at how services would handle the impact.

Cards detailed patient conditions and were used to plan where and how they would be treated.

The event brought together colleagues including patient flow, directorate managers, CHoICE, estates, acute medicine, switchboard, emergency departments, radiology, critical care, community and communications.

Its objective was to test our Action Cards and show the relationship between Bronze Operational Control and Sliver Tactical Control, chaired by Peter Sutton, our Accountable Emergency Officer (AEO).

It also gave people who have not taken part in either a Bronze or Silver meeting to see what happens, with Bronze reporting to Silver via a Teams meeting at the close of each session.

A Silver command meeting was held at the close of each session.

Technology was also put to the test, showing how a virtual Silver briefing would look, as well as see how Sunderland Royal Hospital’s off-site system would work in such a situation.

The organisers of the day, emergency medicine consultant and our Emergency Preparedness Resilience and Response (EPRR) Lead Jonathon Hurley-Morris and Christine Bullmore, EPRR Coordinator and Business Continuity Lead, were joined by external observers from Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, the Northern Trauma Network and two neighbouring NHS Trusts, including Diane Hurley, the Head of EPRR Manager at South Tees Hospitals NHS FT

A formal report of the exercise will be presented to the EPRR Operational Group and Trust Resilience Form, with another day already in the planning.