The College of West Anglia welcomed emergency service partners to its King’s Lynn campus for a large-scale multi-agency training exercise, providing students with a realistic insight into responding to major incidents.
The exercise brought together Public Protective Services students, Media Make-up students and Performing Arts students alongside police, fire and ambulance services for an evening of realistic emergency response scenarios designed to replicate the pressures faced by frontline services.
The simulation centred on a marauding terrorist attack scenario and featured a series of linked incidents requiring a coordinated response from emergency service teams. Scenarios included a suspected acid attack, a knife-related incident, a hostage situation and fire and rescue operation within the campus’s tower block.
Throughout the exercise, students had the opportunity to observe and support emergency response activity, gaining first-hand experience of incident management, casualty care, public safety procedures and multi-agency working.
The realistic training event formed part of the college’s commitment to providing industry-relevant learning experiences that prepare students for careers within the police, fire and rescue service, armed forces and wider public protective services sector.
The exercise also enabled students to develop key employability skills including teamwork, communication, leadership, decision-making and resilience in high-pressure environments.
Supt Sonia Humphreys said, “The college is an absolutely brilliant setting for us to be able to use for exercises like this which test a wide breadth of scenarios. The location allows us to practice all aspects of different roles and responses across all the emergency services allowing us to be as prepared as possible for any eventuality.
“The support from other organisations including the Borough Council and Queen Elizabeth Hospital is also essential in these kinds of exercises. Our student police officers joined in during the evening, and it gave them the chance to see the challenges that they may face in their careers.
“We would like to extend our thanks to the College for hosting us all and hopefully us demonstrating our work in this way will inspire the next generation of blue light services.”
The College of West Anglia would like to thank all emergency service personnel, volunteers and staff who supported the event and helped create an authentic learning experience for students.