Disaster Planning

-learning lessons from 7/7

Mike Cross

Director of Pharmacy

Barts and the London NHS Trust

Disaster Planning

Outline

• A reminder of the events of 7/7

• How the events unfolded

• Lessons for the future

Summary of Events

• London under terrorist attack

• Over 400 treated in London Hospitals

• 56 died

• HEMS at ERoad

HEMS staff at Edgware Road Station incident

The Royal London Hospital

Timeline

• 8.52 ‘Power surge’

• 9.07 HEMS alerted by LAS• 9.26 Major incident declared• 10.10 First two casualties arrived• By 10.30 25 casualties arrived• By 11.45 96 casualties• By 12.15 176 casualties• By 3.45 208 casualties

Over 80 people are ferried to The Royal London in a convoy of three doubledecker buses

How it evolved…

• 7.45 pm (Thursday)– 27 patients remained– 7 in ITU, 19 on wards, 1 died in theatre

• 10 am Sunday (4 days later)– 7 in ITU, 10 on wards

Meanwhile, in the Pharmacy Department………..

• Major incident 9.28am

• Plan instigated

• A&E pharmacist based in A&E

• Review of stocks

• Clinical staff assigned to facilitate discharge (over 170)

Co-ordination and Planning

• Communication

• Continually changing picture

• Planning ahead

Drug Supplies

• Fluids

• C.D’s

• Replenishing– A&E, HEMS, Theatres, Receiving wards, ITU,

HDU

• TTA’s

• Routine Service

Drug Supplies

• Don’t panic

• How busy can we get?

• Just be prepared– Major incident packs– Fluids– Antidotes / specific preparations

• Police escort

Communications

• Internal bleep, telephone, mobiles all went down.

• Hospital telephones overloaded

• E-mail unaffected

What Have We Done Since?

• Review of communications

• Review contents of major incident supplies

• Scenario planning

What if…..

• At night or weekend

• Power supplies go down

• Computers/robots fail

• Access difficult

• Area quarantined