The identification of competencies for an NHS response to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNe) emergencies.

UNLABELLED: Emergency planning is a new science and there is a lack of UK standardisation in regard to NHS emergency planning. A first step to achieving standardisation within emergency planning is elucidation of national training competencies.

AIM: This study was designed to find consensus amongst multi-agency chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosive (CBRNe) experts on the factors that must be included in future NHS CBRNe competencies.

METHODS: Data was collected using an anonymised online Delphi study. Two rounds of study were completed. Experts were selected through a combination of purposive and snowball sampling. In total 43 experts agreed to take part in this study. Twenty-one experts responded to the first round's single open-ended question. Fourteen experts responded to the second which contained 64 Likert-scored questions. Consensus was achieved in 46 questions.

RESULTS: The consensus of expert opinion generated 10 suggested core training competencies.

CONCLUSION: There is an urgent need to standardise national planning, training and evaluation of NHS staff who are expected to respond to CRBNe and other emergencies. Further research is needed to identify training and response templates so that lessons can be learned from these experiences and fed back to improve future response.