Ambulance circuit

An ambulance circuit must be established. Empty vehicles are parked at an ambulance parking point and called forwards as required to the ambulance loading point adjacent to the casualty clearing station. Once loaded, the ambulance follows a predetermined route from the site, before transferring patients to predetermined locations depending on their severity, the nature of their injuries and the current clinical workload. 

Fig. 2.6 The ambulance circuit. MC, medical commander AC, ambulance commander FC, fire commander PC, police commander.

The ambulance circuits and loading points should be upwind of the incident site and outside the outer cordon. The evacuation plan should also be coordinated at a higher level to ensure casualties are sent to appropriate hospitals and distributed so that no single hospital is overwhelmed if possible. In the event of a hospital receiving a significant number of contaminated casualties the evacuation plan may be changed to redirect clean casualties to alternative hospitals. 

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