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TEN SECOND TRIAGE (TST) BANDS – CASUALTY LABELLING
November 12, 2023
EFFECTIVE CASUALTY LABELLING FOLLOWING TEN SECOND TRIAGE (TST) AND MITT
New short (3 minute) film available to view here.
The UK has experienced a number of incidents in recent years which have presented a range of challenging clinical scenarios such as blast injury, penetrating injury and the use of chemical agents, unlike those seen in normal day-to-day practice.
As a result, in April 2023, NHS England wrote to all NHS ambulance services and regional heads of emergency preparedness, resilience and response to highlight a new development in major incident casualty triage, alongside two new triage tools to be used by any responder who may be involved in a major incident.
The NHS Major Incident Triage Tool (MITT) - to be used by all NHS responders - and the Ten Second Triage tool (TST) - intended to be used by anyone responding to a major incident to provide care to casualties prior to the arrival of the NHS clinical response – have now been launched with all ambulance services and relevant NHS bodies expected to adhere to the new system.
The system will also be of particular interest to Police, Fire & Rescue services and other frontline emergency responders.
TEN SECOND TRIAGE BANDS NOW AVAILABLE
Once a casualty has been triaged it is important to ensure that the assigned priority is communicated to further responders to ensure casualties are dealt with in the order of priority and avoid duplication of effort – ultimately helping to save more lives.
As part of the TST process, simple but consistent labelling that indicates the priority of the casualty must now be used to communicate to further responders and ensure resources are directed appropriately. NHS England has provided a specification for colour-coded triage bands that corresponds to the triage category colour – there are four in total – see: https://www.england.nhs.uk/long-read/casualty-labelling-following-triage/.
Metafont Ltd is a UK-based design and print company that is now already supplying these triage bands to the emergency services, each conforming to correct NHSE specifications.
The products have a steel memory metal core encased within low light fluorescent reflective coloured material (made of PVC and latex free).
The bands are flexible so they wrap around a limb (wrist usually) so they can be pulled straight but snap around a limb if ‘slapped’ against the limb and can then be straightened again and reused multiple times if required.
SEPARATE MITT TRIAGE BANDS ALSO AVAILABLE
These conform to the NHSE specification for MITT triage labelling and are different to the TST bands.
Metafont is now taking orders from emergency services organisations for both products.
The company also offers a bespoke carry bag with individual pockets for each triage band category, ensuring ease of storage and deployment in the field by first responders. When unrolled, it displays a printed panel of the TST algorithm to aid the user processing the triage, as well as a pen holder for use with the attached wipe-clean tally chart.
For more information or to receive samples or a quotation please email enquiries@metafont.co.uk.