• Delphi study
• chemical incidents

For accident and emergency (A&E) departments, many chemical incidents occur each year. However, surveillance suggests that few incidents occur in any one department each year as probably not more than about 10 events are reported for each A&E.¹ The problem of A&E departments failing to manage incidents effectively has been reported.²³ With little routine experience from any hazardous material incident or chemical incident, building the necessary skills to achieve the maximisation of patient care and the minimisation of harm to staff and hospital facilities has been difficult. Therefore, the need to prevent problems arising from a chemical incident, be it accidental or deliberate, for an A&E department has …