SP Help Train 999 Services

Shropshire based medical supplier SP Services and their Yorkshire based colleagues at TSG Associates are helping train the UK’s emergency services to deal with a terrorist attack or mass casualty incident. Telford based SP Services (UK) Ltd supplies emergency medical equipment to thousands of customers up and down the UK including the NHS and the MOD.

Over 100 delegates recently attended the Wiltshire Ambulance Service Headquarters in Chippenham to take part in a training day organised by SP’s Managing Director, Steve Bray. The delegates came from all four corners of the UK including the Channel Islands as well as international visitors from Ireland, Siberia, Africa and even one from New Zealand. They consisted of Ambulance Officers from the NHS and private sector, the Voluntary Ambulance Societies ie St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross, MOD medical personnel from bases around the world, hospital doctors and nurses, corporate safety officers,
police and fire officers and local authority emergency planning managers.

Steve Bray said “Following September 11th, vast sums of tax payers money has been spent by the Government on making sure that the UK is equipped to deal with a terrorist attack. We felt it was important for us to do our bit and to enable emergency service workers to have additional training on how to work in situations that could create a large number of casualties.”

The training involved class room lectures and practical sessions on how to quickly identify seriously injured patients from those with minor injuries (or dead) when faced with a serious chemical or terrorist incident. Steve Bray said “It is very important to quickly identify those patients that need urgent medical treatment so that they can be prioritised through the ambulance and hospital system. This may seem obvious but in an incident that may have 50 casualties such as a coach crash, there will initially only be a limited number of available ambulances and medical staff to send to the scene. They may only be able to cope with say 10 serious casualties so all 50 need to be sorted and prioritised so that the 10 serious ones get treated first and have the best chance of survival. The remaining 40 will be made up of walking wounded who can be treated once more resources are available. Unfortunately some of those 40 may be dead and it is equally important that they can be identified so that they do not tie up the limited medical resources that could be better spent on improving the chances of those with serious life threatening injuries.”

Such has been the success of the day in Wiltshire, that SP Services and TSG Associates have now been asked to run similar events in other UK locations including the Bedfordshire / Hertfordshire border and another one in Merseyside, check out the SP website for the latest event information.

Like most people in the UK, we hope these skills will never have to be put to the test, but if the unthinkable happens, we know that the men and women who work in our emergency services will have the best equipment and training to deal with such an incident.