A TRAINING exercise to test the emergency plans at Fairfield Hospital proved a success, with a record turnout of staff.

More than 90 employees from across the hospital took part in the two-day event organised by Emergo, which arranges training sessions for hospitals across the country.

The exercise involved a day of discussion and planning, followed by an imaginary incident with staff quizzed on how they would have responded if it had been in reality.

Collette Parker, emergency planning manager for the Pennine Acute Trust and a former A&E nurse, said: "People often think of major incidents as being explosions, fires, floods or major road traffic accidents and those certainly are potential issues.

"But something like a coachload of daytrippers who suddenly turn up at A&E because they've been hit by a very bad food poisoning can also stretch you to the limit - that's a real life situation which happened to me once and it left the department absolutely stretched to the limit."

The exercise was part of a routine updating of the hospital's major incident plan.

Collette added: "We had a large level of staff attendance. The Emergo trainers actually said that it was the largest turnout they had seen.."