NHS volunteers get Ebola training in York

More than 50 volunteers at the Army Medical Services Training Centre, near York, have been put through the comprehensive nine-day training scheme which aims to fully prepare them for conditions in the field.

Taking the NHS employees through a replicated medical camp, members of the armed services train them in the different stages of assessment, suspected and confirmed cases of the disease.

With the temperature even raised to the heat of West Africa, it is expected many hundreds of medical volunteers will pass through the doors with around 1,000 people already having come forward.

Dr Roger Alcock, a consultant in emergency medicine at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Scotland, is expecting to leave for Sierra Leone later this week.

“There’s a huge number of people affected and it’s all numbers, but when you step back and look at the cases it becomes people and names and it becomes much more real,” he said.

“It relates to your family and you feel the need to assist and support your colleagues and the community in West Africa.

“I recognised people need help and assistance, they’re fairly under-developed countries and the Ebola crisis has made things very difficult for them.

“We’ve had excellent training here by the British military and that together with the additional experience we’ve had means we’ll be able to deal with the situation that we will be faced with in West Africa.”

The Army said it was aiming to provide the best training possible so there would be no surprises for the volunteers in the field.

Tony Redmond, director of UK-Med, who helps recruit people for responses like this, said around 1,000 NHS staff had already come forward.