STAFF were put into urgent action at Grimsby hospital's A&E department after a patient walked in having just returned from West Africa with a fever.
Hospital workers donning potentially life-saving protection suits and masks quickly isolated the suspected Ebola patient for the safety of staff and members of the public.
Thankfully, this wasn't a real emergency, rather a vital live exercise to test how prepared the centre would be if a suspected Ebola patient walked through the doors.
Resilience manager Graham Jaques said: "The safety of our staff, patients and members of the public are of paramount importance to us. That is why we arranged for a live exercise to test our preparedness if such a situation arose."
He said staff, who have already received training from the infection prevention and control team, were not given any warning of the test until 10 minutes before the 'patient' walked into the centre.
Mr Jaques said: "We needed to test whether they followed the national protocol, as well as making sure they correctly isolated the patient, used the personal protective equipment properly and treated the patient appropriately."
The Trust has a statutory responsibility under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 as a category one responder to plan, prepare and respond to major incidents. One of the ways it does this is by holding live exercises where it puts staff through their paces to ensure there are no gaps or weaknesses in procedures.
Assistant director of infection prevention and control Viv Duncanson, who was also involved on the day, said: "The event was successful in that it enabled the Trust to identify areas for improvement."
Prior to the exercise, a key part of training for staff includes the use of a marker powder to simulate the virus. If the PPE is correctly applied and removed, then none of the powder would be visible on the uniform of the wearer when exposed to an ultra violet light.
The exercise also highlighted the importance of using a buddy system where one person acts as an observer for the caregiver to make sure they use the PPE correctly and deliver care appropriately.
Paul Kirton-Watson, associate chief nurse, said: "Our staff dealt with the exercise in a calm and confident way, ensuring the 'patient' was cared for and minimising risks to themselves, their other patients and the department."
Patients in the early stages suffer sudden onset of a fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and a sore throat. These are all symptoms similar to malaria. In the later stages of the infection people may have vomiting, diarrhoea, impaired kidney and liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding.
Anyone who has returned from West Africa with any of the above symptoms should ring NHS 111 for advice.
