Everyone helped at London hospital

By Caroline Ryan
BBC News health reporter

Medical students helped staff deal with casualties from the London bomb attack at one of the hospitals treating those caught up in the attack.

The future doctors sat with patients taken to University College London Hospital, acting as eyes and ears for qualified staff.

The hospital, which moved to new £420m premises just three weeks ago, is just a few blocks away from the scenes of the blast on the number 30 bus, and the Russell Square explosion.

UCLH has cared for a total of 61 patients caught up in the attacks.

It is still treating 14 patients, including five in intensive care units across the trust.

As soon as managers became aware of what had happened, major incident plans came into operation.

Staff who were on duty, and many who were not, reported to the trust's hospitals, offering their skills.

Everyone who was there offered their help. Porters left the hospital to help bring casualties in, and managers helped bring supplies to A&E from other parts of the hospital.

It was not just staff from the trust who offered their services. One surgeon from Bradford who happened to be in London on Thursday came to the hospital offering to help.

'Eerie silence'

Doctors from a range of specialities were on hand to treat those brought in, including anaesthetists helping with pain relief, plastic surgeons treating facial wounds and ear, nose and throat specialists to care for those with inhalation problems.

Vascular surgeons were present to operate on those with severe wounds, repairing damaged tissue along with orthopaedic surgeons who operated on broken bones.

The senior staff were communicating by walkie-talkies Dr Brigitta Brandner, consultant anaesthetist

Psychiatrists were also there to help people who were in mental, rather than physical, distress.

The trust also cleared beds to ensure it could care for those casualties who needed to be admitted by cancelling planned procedures.

Plans were also made to move intensive care patients if necessary.

Dr Martin Smith, the lead consultant at the trust's Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, was one of those who had to identify patients who could be moved from ICU.

Once that was done, it was a matter of waiting,

"We were ready to take patients from about 11. But after the initial frenzied activity, there was just an eerie silence.

"It became clear that patients would not need to come to us immediately."

'We've learnt from the past'

Dr Brigitta Brandner, a consultant anaesthetist at the trust, was one of those who volunteered to help out at UCLH.

She said doctors, like many others in London on Thursday, could not use their mobile phones, so reported for duty uncertain of exactly what had happened.

Dr Brandner said: "The senior staff were communicating by walkie-talkies, as they would in any major incident.

"There were two surgeons, one in A&E and one in theatre area, who were talking to each other this way.

"It meant information about patients' injuries and the surgery they might need could be passed immediately up to surgical staff in theatre."

She added: "There were some medical students there, and they were despatched to individual patients.

"They were there to keep patients company, and to be an extra pair of eyes and ears for us."

Dr John Lee, a consultant in pain medicine based at UCLH's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery said the trust was well prepared to deal with the crisis, as it direct experience of caring for people caught up in previous attacks.

"We treated people injured in the King's Cross fire and in the Soho pub bombing.

"From previous occasions, we have learnt a lot".