In training for a trouble-free Olympics

London Ambulance Service has already started preparing for the biggest sporting event in the world - the 2012 Olympic Games - by establishing an Olympic Planning Unit.

The LAS's four-strong team, led by ambulance operations manager Peter Thorpe, is laying down foundations for ensuring the service is ready for the Games, which will run over a 60-day period at a 680-acre site in Stratford, east London, and at various venues throughout the capital and other parts of the UK.

The service is working closely with London councils as well as the London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police, both of which have officers on secondment to the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), which is responsible for the preparation and staging of the 2012 Games.

Using a similar model, a specially created olympic Command Unit of the Metropolitan Police Service will work to co-ordinate security planning at a local, national and international level.

"These relationships already exist because in London there's an emergency every day of the week," says Thorpe. "But we need to ensure continuity of planning. Our objective is to prepare and provide a service to the Games without compromising services elsewhere, ensuring that should Joe Bloggs in the East End require emergency medical attention he will still be able to rely on us, whatever else is happening in Stratford."

Part of this planning is rehearsing and establishing protocols for dozens of scenarios which would require the emergency services to intervene. What happens if the Tube fails, for example? What happens if the Games are subject to a terrorist attack? What if there were a massive outbreak of food poisoning or a pan-London power cut?

Thorpe makes comparisons with the Notting Hill Carnival or a big Party in the Park event in terms of how LAS will work with the other emergency services, and with the St John Ambulance, who will be delivering first aid at the Games. He also emphasises the scale of the event and the number of people who need to be covered.

"It's a significant commitment with hundreds of thousands of spectators, athletes and members of the IOC descending on the site: we expecting more than 20,000 members of the media alone," he says. "We also need to provide a service for thousands of construction workers in the run-up to the Games, and to work with other ambulance services to cover the torch relay bringing the flame from Beijing."

The UK is an acknowledged leader in planning and implementing troublefree sporting events on a global scale. Based on the success of the Manchester Commonwealth Games and participation in the planning of Sydney's security in 2000, UK experts were invited to be key members of the security task force for the 2004 Games in Athens. The 2012 Games, however, are scheduled within weeks of other major events, including the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June, and the LAS will be covering the Games in addition to the 1.2 million emergency calls it receives each year.

Tony Rowe, a member of the Olympic Planning Unit, says: "We understand from cities that have held similar events that early preparation is one of the keys to success, which is why we have set up our office five years in advance. Although it is a long way away, there is an enormous amount which can be done at this stage."

Along with the Games itself, the service will be preparing for four other phases: construction, testing, exercises and training. This includes, for example, close liaison with planners and architects to ensure that every structure associated with the Games will have effective and unobtrusive security measures built-in.

Staff will be involved in consultation on aspects of design for the Olympic Park stadiums and village and the transport plan. Thorpe, who was an area manager for Hillingdon before being appointed to his current role, is already seeing his team expand to six people by the end of the year.

"As we get nearer to 2012 the size of the team will increase to around 20 staff," he says, "and it is also likely that members of the service will go to work with the inter-agency Olympic Security Directorate and the Olympic Development Agency."

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