The role of the radiology department during the London bombings,7 July 2005: Lessons learnt and strategy in 2011

Abstract

In the modern age, any major hospital needs to be prepared for a major incident and the radiology department plays a vital role in managing severely injured patients in an efficient manner in this setting. With this in mind, this article describes the impact of the London bombings of 7 July 2005 on the radiology department of the Royal London Hospital in East London. We will describe some of the underlying principles and concepts in major incident management, how the major incident was managed, the lessons learnt from our performance and changes to policies and protocols that have been initiated in response to these lessons.