London Hospital Blaze Forces Evacuation

Tangerine Lipgloss · Jan 2, 2008

I saw this briefly on the news! What a nightmare. I hope the patients and staff are ok.

I used to worry about fire in my facility too.

nightmare, RN · Jan 2, 2008

I think this is everyone's worst nightmare!! We only have 3 staff in the building at night.How on earth could we evacuate 28 residents if there was an active fire!! One person is supposed to wait for the fire brigade,one is supposed to coordinate,that leaves one to actually evacuate!!:angryfire:angryfire How would you work it?

Silverdragon102, BSN · Jan 2, 2008

Not nice and usually at this time of the year the NHS has bed problems (as in not enough beds) so going to be fun trying to find beds for the patients that can't go home. Thankfully appears to have gone well with the evacuation and at the moment nothing to indicate loss of life.

danissa, LPN, LVN · Jan 2, 2008

Just heard this on the 6pm news..how awful!! Such a great hospital, and there were patients in surgery at the time.

Scary stuff indeed. We had fire alarms go off regularly during Xmas week, but its easier to move 24 babies, than it is to move 24 bedridden adults. Our plan is to put as many (tagged) babies as we can in a wheeled cot and get them out, then go for the vented..extra hands on babies. We shove milk, teats, blankets etc into a bag so we are good to go for the feeder growers.

allnurses Guide · Jan 2, 2008

There is a bit more information here

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7168206.stm

according to this 3 people injured one being a patient and 2 firefighters.

With those figures it would seem that thier major incident evacuation plan worked well. I would imagine that being a hospital in our London they would have been fairly well prepared in case of terrorism

nightmare, RN · Jan 2, 2008

Saw the pics on the 6 o'clock news,the roof looks totally destroyed,what a disaster!

allnurses Guide · Jan 2, 2008

I know all hospitals are important but personally I think the royal marsden has special significance for all it's work. I still have a copy of the royal marsden's manual of clinical nursing procedures on my desk.

From what the article says there is loads of research at risk which would be a real tradegy with the amount of work they have done

Silverdragon102, BSN · Jan 2, 2008

I know all hospitals are important but personally I think the royal marsden has special significance for all it's work. I still have a copy of the royal marsden's manual of clinical nursing procedures on my desk.
From what the article says there is loads of research at risk which would be a real tradegy with the amount of work they have done

I too have my copy of Marsden They do great work and would be a shame if research is lost

bigsyis · Jan 2, 2008

I read about this and saw photos of the fire and evacuation on the BBC on line. There were actually two pts in surgery at the time of the fire who had to be evacuated to another hospital! I don't know how often they have had fire drills, but from what I read, it sounds like it went pretty well. It was a very significant fire, because it burned for several hours and destroyed almost the entire roof of the hospital. BTW-photos of that hospital look as though it was quite old.

That staff pulled together and did a good job-one photo caption said that MDs assisted with moving the pts, too!

allnurses Guide · Jan 2, 2008

i read about this and saw photos of the fire and evacuation on the bbc on line. there were actually two pts in surgery at the time of the fire who had to be evacuated to another hospital! i don't know how often they have had fire drills, but from what i read, it sounds like it went pretty well. it was a very significant fire, because it burned for several hours and destroyed almost the entire roof of the hospital. btw-photos of that hospital look as though it was quite old.
that staff pulled together and did a good job-one photo caption said that mds assisted with moving the pts, too!

of course the doctors assisted with moving patients, i would expect no less.

it is a very old building, built in 1862. just a bit of history for you as it is a very important institution both nationally and internationally.

the royal marsden was founded in 1851 by dr william marsden for the treatment and study of cancer. it was the first hospital in the world dedicated to this goal and founded as the free cancer hospital. dr marden who had lost his wife to cancer wanted to classify, research and find new treatments for cancers.

here is a bit from the hospitals web page

the hospital at first consisted solely of a dispensary and the drugs prescribed were palliative and aimed at treating symptoms, but it allowed william marsden the opportunity to study and research the disease.
the hospital quickly outgrew its original premises as it became apparent that some patients required inpatient care. it moved locations several times during the 1850s until its benefactors decided to find a permanent solution. funds were raised to build a dedicated new building on fulham road, chelsea and the hospital moved to its new site in 1862.
the hospital was granted its royal charter of incorporation by king george v in 1910 and became known as the cancer hospital (free). this was subsequently changed by king edward viii to include the word 'royal' and in 1954 the hospital was renamed the royal marsden hospital in recognition of the vision and commitment of its founder.
when the national health service was formed in 1948 the royal marsden became a post-graduate teaching hospital. in response to the need to expand to treat more patients and train more doctors, a second hospital in sutton, surrey was opened in 1962.
in 1991 it became the first nhs hospital to be awarded the queen's award for technology for its work on drug development. the hospital achieved the international quality standard iso 9001 for radiotherapy in 1996 and for chemotherapy in 2003. it was recognised as one of six centres of excellence in the government's nhs plan and has achieved four national charter marks for all its services, the most recent awarded in 2005.
in april 2004, the hospital became one of the country's first nhs foundation trusts. this new status has provided the financial freedom and greater flexibility to focus on allowing more patients to access our expertise.
in 2007, the royal marsden was awarded the highest score of 'excellent' by the healthcare commission, for both quality of services and use of resources for the second year running - the only nhs trust to do this. this follows four successive years of being awarded the highest rating of three stars in the nhs performance indicators.
today, the royal marsden nhs foundation trust, in association with the institute of cancer research, has an unrivalled worldwide reputation for its patient care, research and education.
in november 2006, the royal marsden, together with its academic partner the institute of cancer research, was designated the uk's only biomedical research centre for cancer by the national institute for health research, (nihr) with a £10 million annual research grant and £6 million capital investment to build a state-of-the-art translational research centre.

a hugely historic and important nhs trust

allnurses Guide · Jan 2, 2008