UCL Discovery

Abstract

Emergency relief operations following catastrophic accidents and natural disasters can only be effective if they are well coordinated. This paper first identifies the cognitive issues of coordination at the heart of emergency operations and illustrates the issues through an examination of the Clapham railway accident. The official enquiry following that particular accident recommended the use of tabletop exercises for training the emergency agencies. Today, tabletop training is widely practised in the UK and this paper presents an account of one such exercise observed by the author. The tabletop exercise used the scenario of a fictitious railway accident to train personnel from a number of emergency agencies and the general potential of tabletop exercises for training coordination is examined. The paper has implications for the development of training practices and technologies for emergency agencies and for other organisations where coordination is critical for effectiveness.