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Hazardous Area Response Team (HART)

Hazardous Area Response Team

The HART team are a group of paramedics who are trained to go into the 'hot zone' of incidents.

Traditionally, paramedics have always had to wait for other services such as a fire and rescue service to bring patients from the heart of an incident to the edge of the inner cordon.

However, experts in mainstream ambulance services, clinicians and specialists in the CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear) fields suggested that not being able to operate in the 'hot zone' meant the ambulance service was being impeded.

By working at the centre of an event, the ambulance service could save more lives during the early stages of a major incident.

Subsequent experience from the terrorist bombings in London on 7th July 2005 proved this to be correct.

UK ambulance service HART teams now work alongside the other emergency services at the centre of serious accidents of threats to public health.

The NEAS HART team was officially launched in the early part of 2010.

If you want to know more about the HART team contact simon.swallow@neas.nhs.uk or visit www.ambulancehart.org