Royal London doctors draw up trauma guidelines 9 years after 7/7 bombings

Top hospital consultants with experience of major incidents like London’s 7/7 bombings are helping to draw up national guidelines to improve treatment of trauma patients.

Senior anaesthetists at the Royal London, where the Air Ambulance helicopter is based, are working on a project by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence on best practice to create a model for all NHS trauma centres.

Much of the guidelines are being based on the Royal London’s own major trauma centre in Whitechapel, with its international reputation in dealing with the most-serious injuries from major disasters such as the 2005 London Underground bombings at Aldgate and King’s Cross.

“Trauma has only properly been recognised in the last 20 years,” consultant Dr Breda O’Neill said. “Yet trauma is the commonest killer of patients under 45.”

But anaesthetists are often unrecognized, Bart’s Health Trust points out.

So the anaesthetists and other senior members of the trauma team are working with specialists from NHS trusts up and down the contry over the next two years to draw up a standard procedure of clinical practice, based on their experience at Whitechapel, to focus on aspects such as breathing and ventilation, circulation, haemorrhage and temperature control.

Royal London trauma specialists are currently applying lessons to trauma treatment from the military in Afghanistan.