GP's 800 jabs in pandemic flu dry-run

Dr Gillian Rink helped to carry out 800 dummy vaccinations during a pandemic flu simulation exercise at Bolton Arena.

Among the scenarios dreamt up to test medical staff were a girl who'd recently been hospitalised in intensive care, a man who had a heart attack in the middle of proceedings and a lost child.

'I wanted to see how an exercise like that would work as we're all going to be involved in the future,' said Dr Rink, a GP in Tong Fold in Bolton.

'It was quite pressured. We were hoping to do 1,000 in three hours and they stopped when we did 800 after an hour and a half. I was dealing with complex triage and one patient in particular raised a lot of difficult questions.

'It was a very good learning exercise and if it came to the crunch I would volunteer my services again,' she said.