Gun trauma training for A&E doctors

Emergency doctors are to be trained by frontline army medics to help them deal with the spiralling number of gunshot and stab wounds in London hospitals.

Surgeons from the Royal London in Whitechapel and Homerton University Hospital in Hackney - just minutes from an area labelled Murder Mile after a series of drug-related shootings - will learn battlefield surgery on an intensive course used to prepare military doctors for duty in Afghanistan.

The plan for doctors to attend the three-day course at the Royal College of Surgeons is the latest attempt to help London's casualty doctors develop the "trauma" techniques commonly used in inner-city hospitals in the United States and South Africa. The course will be run by Professor Jim Ryan, a former professor of military surgery at the Royal Army Medical College.

Prof Ryan, who served in the Falklands war, said: "In the developed world there has been an increase in the number of penetrative injuries and surgeons are less well trained for a more complex problem."

Managers at Homerton and the Royal London are to meet next week to discuss the plans and decide on final approval for compulsory training.