Emergency services take part in invaluable multi-agency exercise – Cannon Street

Emergency services in London joined forces last week to test their joint emergency response to a major incident at Cannon Street railway station.

Exercise Iron Titan, led by The City Security Council (CSC), tested participants from British Transport Police (BTP), London Ambulance Service (LAS), London Fire Brigade (LFB), Network Rail (NWR) and train operating company Southeastern alongside Transport for London (TfL) on their response to a major incident on Sunday (23 March).

These exercises provide a valuable opportunity to develop, test and strengthen emergency responses for handling major incidents and ensure clear lines of communication between all of those involved.

Exercises like Iron Titan are designed with learnings and observations from past incidents in order to improve responses to similar incidents in the future. Last week’s exercise at Cannon Street railway station was designed with the tragic incident in 1991 in mind, where a train crashed into the buffer stops at the end of the railway line resulting in two deaths and hundreds more being injured.

Ahead of the briefing, the significance of the crash was explained and acknowledged by all those partaking in the training, and a minute’s silence was held in memory and respect of those that lost their lives.

Incident commander PS Mark Kemp said: “While these large-scale incidents are rare, it’s critical that we continue regular testing with our partners and reviewing our plans to ensure we are as prepared as possible.

“Multi-agency responses to incidents like this are often complex and fast paced, and this exercise gave us an invaluable opportunity to trial our response and communications to minimise harm to the public and effectively manage and respond to a major incident.”

Natasha Wills, Director of Resilience and Specialist Assets at London Ambulance Service, said: “While we hope these sorts of events never happen, London needs us to be prepared for any eventuality.

“These exercises give us the opportunity to test our tactics and ensure we can provide the best possible care for Londoners in complex and fast evolving situations.

“Our resilience and specialist assets teams are experts in planning for major incidents, including leading our participation in multi-agency exercises and implementing relevant recommendations from inquiries, for example, the Manchester Arena attack.”