So, it seems that there isn't anything chemical/biological to worry about - so no doubt the Decontamination team are all disappointed...

The police commisioner has told all us Londoners to carry on as normal, but to avoid the affected areas.

The last I heard was that some of the team were looking at a "white powder" incident - but we get a couple of them a week, so it's unlikely to be anything serious.

Once more, most Londoners will look at what happened today, shrug their shoulders and make a cup of tea.

(Something I'm going to do now...)

One of our crews has been told to "Blue Light" down to Headquarters in order to provide cover for the area affected.

Decon officer is still on standby.

Everyone here is fairly relaxed about the whole thing, but we are quite a way away from everything.

Our Decon officer has just been told that he has to come off the road and be ready on standby. This means that our level of threat has been raised a bit.

Could it be because they are worried that there may be a chemical component to an unexploded bomb?

Apparently there are chemical suited people going down into Warren St station.

(Probably just making sure that everything is 'clean').

No-one on station has had a 'normal' call for the past 40 minutes.

Looks like it might be fairly minor - current theory is that a bomb has failed to go off on a tube. So far it's not being declared as a major incident.

At the moment we are all on station sitting watching the news.

Here is hoping that no-one is hurt.

I suspect I can direct you to your normal news-sites, as I'm not going to have any great insights from here on in.

Decon officer has been told to get ready for potential incident.

Looks like it might be kicking off in London again. An FRU has been sent to Warren st station, smoke has been seen. Decon officer on station hasn't heard anything yet.

Are you interested in the ethics surrounding Blogging?

Then a rather large report has just been put up on Blogspot

It's a pretty readable report, and I remember filling in the survey back in May.

I did have to look what this 'ethics' word meant though...

There is a special diagnostic procedure that us seasoned medical professionals use.

"Handbag medicine".

To the lay bystander it may seem that we are standing over the unconscious (or merely uncooperative) patient, rooting through their belongings, looking for something expensive to steal. For women this is normally a handbag, for men you will find us going through their wallet.

But! It is not true that we are seeking to boost our wages (meagre though they are), instead, dear reader, we are trying to help the patient.

If the patient is unconscious then we need to get as much information as possible, and one way of doing this is to go down their possessions.

The best thing that we can find is a card that is big, bright, hard to overlook with "I have epilepsy" written on the front (with the patient's name, date of birth and next of kin contacts written on the back).

The next best thing is often an address book/diary, it's especially helpful if the patient has filled in the front "personal details" bit.

At a pinch we can use our detective skills with envelopes (opened and unopened), credit cards, GP slips, prescription forms (often very helpful), immigration or asylum documents (popular in this area) and (also popular in this area) court summons.

So, an East Anglian Paramedic Bob Brotchie has come up with a rather good idea, given that people today, (myself included) seem wedded to our mobile phones.

ICE

Basically you put the details of the person you would like contacted In Case of Emergency into your phone under the name 'ICE'.

It's a good idea, and the drawbacks (the phone might be broken or separated from the patient) are the same drawbacks as anything that you would write on a piece of paper.

So, do it today!

True, if you are seriously injured enough, then we won't be rooting around your mobile phone (we'd be actually treating you), but it'd help the staff in the hospital when they get a quiet moment.

There have been hoax emails going around saying that if you put ICE into your phone then you get your phone credits drained away. This is absolutely a hoax.

This has been a public service announcement.