Table 2
Assessment of staff performance and compliance with the SACC doctrine during the simulated chemical incident exercises
| SACC criteria | Children’s hospital | General hospital |
|---|---|---|
| CPPE, chemical personal protection equipment; SACC, Structured Approach to Chemical Casualties. | ||
| CPPE and decontamination equipment available | Yes, some delay in locating equipment | All equipment available and ready to hand |
| Medical staff deployed for command, scene safety, communication, and assessment | Prompt and correct deployment of staff | Prompt and correct deployment of staff Too few staff initially |
| Incident activation procedures and communication cascade | Good | Good, major incident control team arrived within 15 minutes |
| Appropriate demarcation of the hospital into clean and contaminated zones | Accomplished in six minutes | Accomplished in six minutes, roles delegated Access through to the clean zone was blocked with equipment that would otherwise have been used had this not been an exercise |
| Correct and timely donning of CPPE | Delays and practical difficulties in assembling CPPE | They were donned correctly, some difficulties in sizing, delays in assembling and donning |
| Triage according to triage sieve | Slow as there was only one triage officer | When triaged, the sieve was used correctly, deficiency in staff numbers led to delays |
| Recommended patient decontamination process | Employed correctly but inadequate | Employed correctly but inadequate |
| Appropriate lifesaving first aid during decontamination | Delay in finding equipment | Used appropriately |
| Attempts made to minimise contamination trails | Patients not involved in the exercise crossed the decontamination area to access outpatient department that would have been closed in a real event. A “contaminated” casualty was able to enter the department potentially causing contamination | There was no effective control of the contaminated zone |
| Correct procedure for staff decontamination | Correct procedure used, but not for enough time | Correct procedure used, but not for enough time. |
