Worried residents can rest assured that should the borough be targeted by terrorists medical staff have the necessary resources at their fingertips, a health authority source has claimed. The spokesman for Croydon Health Authority explained that money would be no object because the Government would foot the bill.

Confidence felt by medics and emergency planners also stems from the fact that the borough's teams are regularly called up for refresher courses on emergency procedures, and the events of September 11 have acted merely to fine-tune awareness.

If a major incident is declared a control room would be set up to co-ordinate the borough's response including London Ambulance, Mayday Hospital, the health authority, primary care groups, community trusts and Croydon Council.

Stocks of medicines and other materials are regularly audited, and the health authority is confident that should there be an anthrax outbreak or gas attack, treatments are readily available.

Medics also have the ability to call on additional outside support from organisations such as the National Chemical Incident Response Service.

The spokesman said: "We have reviewed and updated our major incident policy and procedures - we are testing them and last week we held a training day internally led by the London Region NHS's Emergency Planning Team.

"We are in close contact with the regional team and receive regular information and guidance from them.

"Trusts have also been asked to review their procedures in the light of latest guidance and we have been working closely with Mayday on this."

The borough's resources and personnel would also be co-ordinated and shared with neighbouring health authorities where needed.

The spokesman claimed that everyone likely to be involved is aware of the planned methods of communication ensuring instructions and information travels smoothly internally and to the public.

November 12, 2001 10:00