Leading anaesthetist praises NHS response to Westminster attacks

A consultant anaesthetist at one of the trauma centres that received casualties after this week’s attacks in Westminster has praised his colleagues for their “fantastic response.”

Helgi Johannsson, clinical director of anaesthesia at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which received eight casualties, said that the trust had taken part in a pan-London simulation exercise in the past year, which simulated a major train accident. He said that the training kicked in once the Westminster incident was declared at 15.55 on Wednesday.

“I couldn’t fault our teams, they did an absolutely fantastic job. The whole process worked very well,” he said.

Four people died and 40 were injured, some critically, when a man ploughed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge at 14.40 on 22 March. Major incidents such as this are planned for under guidance in the NHS’s Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response plans.

Johannsson said that, once a major incident is declared, an automated switchboard calls all relevant individuals. He said that there was a “fantastic response . . . We had people not only offering to come in there and then but also coming in for the night shift. Two of our senior trainees formed an augmented night shift.” He added that one emergency coordinator had worked downstairs in the emergency department and one upstairs in theatres.

“We kept most of the workforce in theatres, and we called down for people as we needed them,” said Johannsson. “We used every single bay in resus. When a patient in a bay went elsewhere we filled that bay with another team. We always had one in the queue and one team of people waiting to go in. We could have coped with a lot more casualties than we did.”

Johannsson was not working at Imperial during London’s last major incident in July 2005, but colleagues who were there at the time said that the response to the Westminster attacks was far more coordinated. He added that several debriefs took place after Wednesday’s incident.

“There’s always something to learn. This time it was mainly about how we empty the hospital. Like most NHS hospitals we’re full, so it’s vital we’re able to create space,” he said. “The theatres have to continue running, so in order to do that we had to empty five intensive care beds to sister hospitals. Charing Cross had empty beds, so they were able to take some of our patients.

“The Charing Cross teams came over to St Mary’s and picked up the patients. This meant that our workforce weren’t affected by having to take a team out of St Mary’s. Their role was absolutely vital.”

He added, “We deal with trauma day in, day out. The chief surgeon and I were talking about it. We said it was like a slightly augmented normal day at St Mary’s.”