'Disaster' test for 999 services; Snags to be weeded out before millennium.A MOCK <noinclude></noinclude> Wikipedia does not currently have an encyclopedia article for . You may like to search Wiktionary for "" instead. To begin an article here, feel free to [ edit this page], but please do not create a mere dictionary definition. millennium disaster could be staged in Coventry to put hospital and emergency services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' to a Year 2000 test. Walsgrave Hospitals NHS Trust National Health Service Trusts (NHS Trusts) provide many services of the National Health Service in England and Wales. They are not trusts in the legal sense but are in effect public sector corporations. is planning an exercise to weed weed, common term for any wild plant, particularly an undesired plant, growing in cultivated ground, where it competes with crop plants for soil nutrients and water. out any weaknesses in its major incidents plan before the end of the year. Development director Peter Marsh Professor Peter Marsh is the Dean of Social Sciences at Sheffield University. said: "Because of the potential impact of the millennium, which nobody is quite sure of, we thought it would be wise to test our major incident plan in order to update it before the end of the year." Mr Marsh said the full details would not be made known in advance because part of the test was to see whether staff could cope with the unexpected. The trust, which also includes Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital, routinely carries out a communications exercise twice a year as a partial test of its emergency plans.A full test of the plan would involve simulating an incident such as a plane crash or bomb blast. Mr Marsh said: "Our major incident plan can be called in any time, but because it is more likely we might have to bring it into force over the millennium we thought it would be a good time to test it. "The last time we did a full-scale scenario was actually more than five years. We have not decided whether we will go the whole hog whole hog Slang n. The whole way; the fullest extent: went the whole hog and ordered dessert. adv. Completely; unreservedly: swallowed the official version whole hog. or not." At a board meeting of Walsgrave Hospitals NHS Trust Mr Marsh said the hospital was reasonably well ahead with progress on testing equipment for millennium compliance. Hospitals are assessed using a traffic light system of green for good, amber for getting there and red for failing. Walsgrave is rated as amber. Mr Marsh said: "We have now completed the testing of all equipment for which we had no certificate of compliance. We are now starting to work through the checks on equipment where we have an indication that it should be compliant." He said the first big test for the computer systems would be on September 9 when the computer will read 9/9/99 - which could be another potential signal for shutdown shut·down n. A cessation of operations or activity, as at a factory. shutdown Noun the closing of a factory, shop, or other business Verb shut down . "This will be a good indicator to what might happen at the end of the year," Mr Marsh said. |
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