Preparing for major incidents

The London Ambulance Service has over 30 years of experience of dealing with terrorist incidents in the capital and has extensive experience of responding to major incidents such as train crashes. The Service is a member of the London Emergency Services Liaison Panel (LESLP) and the London Resilience Forum, which includes the Metropolitan Police Service, City of London Police, British Transport Police, the London Fire Brigade and local authorities. Together, they have developed joint-procedures for responding to major incidents.

Training exercises

The Service regularly undertakes training exercises with its emergency services colleagues to test its procedures for handling major incidents. These live exercises are essential to ensure that our major incident plans work. The recent Exercise Palm Tree, involving 30 London Ambulance Service staff, tested how the emergency services would deal with a boat disaster on the River Thames. The exercise tested existing LESLP procedures and will be used to inform a review of domestic passenger regulations.

The Service also frequently partakes in tabletop exercises that help to train staff in strategically managing major incidents. In April 2005, the Service took part in a major transatlantic tabletop exercise called ‘Atlantic Blue’ that involving hundreds of organisations in the UK, US and Canada. The exercise tested incident management procedures, the release of public information and the sharing of intelligence.

7 July 2005

More than 250 members of staff were involved with the emergency response to the bombings of three Underground trains at King’s Cross, Aldgate East and Edgware Road and a bus at Tavistock Square on 7 July 2005.

They treated more than 400 patients, some of whom had sustained horrific injuries, giving them the emergency care and support they needed and clearing all scenes within three hours. It was the courage and professionalism of these people that undoubtedly saved many lives, but they couldn’t have done this without the help of their back- room colleagues.

Pandemic flu

The London Ambulance Service is currently working with the Department of Health and our London health agency colleagues to develop an operational and command plan that in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.