A big island firm has paid for an emergency simulation system to train hospital staff.

The hospital has spent a donation from the Microgaming Health and Care Trust on acquiring the Emergo Train System, an internationally-recognised training tool used for simulating emergency scenarios involving major casualties, from natural disasters to chemical incidents and epidemics.

Available to all hospital staff, including the ambulance service, the ETS will enable teams to practise rare critical care scenarios so that they can prepare in a risk-free environment.

In addition, the system will allow the hospital to exercise and review existing major incident strategies and help to fine-tune emergency response plans.

Dr Gareth Davies, hospital lead for emergency preparedness, said: ’We are extremely grateful to the Microgaming Health and Care Trust for the funding.

’It has given us an amazing piece of equipment to stress test our major incident plan, which can be used and reused by every department in the hospital year on year.

’The Emergo kit will greatly improve staff preparedness, ensure our action plans are up to date and transform the way we simulate a worst-case scenario, and therefore enable us to push our staff further to develop key skills.’

Dr Roy Clague, chairman of the Microgaming Health and Care Trust, said: ’The resilience and preparedness of our island’s healthcare staff is essential, and the simulation system will help strengthen real world communication, teamwork and crisis management during critical events.

’We are always more than delighted to contribute to investment in staff training at Noble’s Hospital to help them continue to provide the best quality of care to the island.’