Interesting day – five of us turned up and no-one else was there! Turns out the exercise was cancelled because of impending bad weather – the inflatable tents they wanted to trial are not necessarily best used when there are strong winds or lightning around, and it may be possible to accept certain risks in a real emergency situation but not in a training exercise, so the interpretation of advice from the Met Office was to cancel. New date is 5 September.
However, every cloud etc., so we had the undivided attention of Jason (Emergency Planner) for the next 3 hours and he explained all the main features of the planned exercise and showed us round the hospital, often in places where the public do not go, and we were able to speak to the specialists.
We saw all the kit they would need to be transported to the site of a field emergency, discussed the role of SY 4×4 as logistics and transport assistance, and he generally showed a huge amount of support for our presence and capability. He spent some time discussing communication links and radios (he is Raynet) and wants us all to be working on compatible channels with compatible protocols, something which he claims is not good at the moment.
He feels constrained by other agencies who are in the chain of command when asking for volunteer assistance, so there are many hurdles to be crossed, but he wants us around and is prepared to make some further training available to us in terms of advanced first aid and trauma, and working with other agencies.
We need to keep alongside Jason as he went out of his way to apologise for not checking we knew the event was cancelled, and he provided us with a valuable insight into the work of a hospital emergency planner. Anyone available for 5 September is encouraged to turn up if possible.
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