Evacuation exercise at hospital
Dozens of firefighters and more than 15 fire appliances descended on New Cross Hospital in a planned evacuation exercise of part of the city-based site.
Fire alarms blared inside parts of the former A&E department, close to the main entrance off Wolverhampton Road.
Crews, who had travelled from as far afield as Birmingham, were briefed on what had happened at the site before evacuating some patients and staff as part of the exercise.
Firefighters donned breathing apparatus like they would do in a real-life scenario.
The evacuation, which was in the planning for six months, comes as earlier this year, the Trust revealed it was reviewing its evacuation and fire precaution procedures at its Heart and Lung Centre after flammable composite material was found in panels on the building.
The same material was found to be used in cladding on Grenfell Tower.
Fire crews on Friday were told that a pretend blaze had erupted in one of the operating theatres, which was filling with plumes of smoke.
While crews were dealing with this, another pretend fire broke out that crews had to deal with, assessing whether hose reels could be used and what damage water would do to the building.
There was a press briefing centre set up as part of the fictitious scenario and journalists were given information on what happened.
Paul Smith, Trust security manager at the hospital said: "It has been a very busy day with many challenges but has been a great success.
"Everyone who has walked past has asked us what has been going on.
"This exercise has been around six months in the planning and it has gone very well. It's important that we regularly have these exercises to assess how we can improve and adapt to different scenarios we may face during a major incident."
Since an inspection found the cladding on the Heart and Lung Centre, fire inspectors deemed the centre to be safe,
Speaking at the time, David Loughton, Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust's chief executive, said: "We can confirm that a sample of building material from the Heart and Lung Centre at our New Cross Hospital site in Wolverhampton has been found to be Aluminium Composite Material (ACM) and has subsequently failed a combustibility test.
"We have since been inspected twice by local fire safety inspectors who have confirmed they are satisfied with the precautions we are taking.
“There are high standards of general fire precautions in the Heart and Lung Centre, well trained staff available 24-hours-a-day and other security measures in place."
