紙上談兵

I was fortunate enough to be invited to visit the Porton Down site of Public Health England (PHE) and was shown around the exercise planning facilities. PHE hosts for the Emergo Train System (ETS), which is used for education and training of command systems, hospital preparedness and surge capacity during emergency and disasters with simulation exercises. This training system was developed in Sweden and is used in over 30 countries. Through this system, hospitals are able to test their own capacity and management in face of scenarios addressing potentially serious events.

In a new programme developed by PHE, a network of hospitals can now be tested for surge capacity and partnership across major trauma hospitals using scenarios. So far this has been shown in exercises to be a useful system as hospital managers and colleagues can, under a safe and controlled environment, experience a complex event and better envision their roles. The communication and interactive nature of these exercises are thought to be the most valuable aspect. The realistic testing of management system allows managers to exercise knowledge in real life scenarios. All hazards can be assessed, and can adapt according to need.

In Hong Kong, where emergency incidents are not common, it is even more important to regularly test such management / triage systems of hospital in order to allow those involved in decision making during emergencies to have an up-to-date knowledge on how to run the response and be trained under realistic conditions.