DEIDRE WILD asks whether any lessons in emergency nursing education have been learnt after the last major conflict

The Gulf War ended in the Spring of 1991. It represented a major departure from previous wars, in that it was the first modern war to involve British troops under the threatened use of nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare agents, as well as those of conventional weaponry (bullets, grenades, mortars, shells; bombs, missiles and mines) (Knudson 1991). In addition, and unlike other UK wars post World War II, the casualty evacuation system in the Gulf (Martin 1991) was set to return casualties speedily back to many NHS hospitals placed on standby in the UK (O’Bryne 1991). These circumstances required a rapid and spontaneous training of standby NHS nursing staff, who as civilians, were unlikely to have been familiar with the causes and effects of either conventional or unconventional warfare (Wild and Brooking 1991).