The majority of those injured in the disaster, and a number of those who died, were taken by ambulance directly from Hillsborough Stadium to the nearest two hospitals: the Northern General (2.4 miles from the stadium) and the Royal Hallamshire (2.7 miles). A very small number of those injured in the disaster attended Barnsley District General Hospital. Each hospital implemented its own Major Disaster Plan before 3.45pm on 15 April.
Numerous family members and friends travelled to the hospitals, either to look for loved ones who were missing or to wait for news of those who were being treated. However, as in other locations, they encountered chaotic scenes and ongoing difficulties in getting accurate information about casualties.
This was exacerbated by the scale of the disaster. Within the first hour after it was notified of the disaster, the A&E department at the Northern General received 87 patients. A&E consultant James Wardrope confirmed this was more in an hour than it would normally receive in half a day. Of these, 17 were admitted to intensive care, again in the first hour. By comparison, in a routine 24-hour period, an average of 15 patients would be admitted to intensive care.
In some cases, mostly through the efforts of hospital staff and volunteers, families and friends did receive updates. This was largely in relation to those being treated for less serious injuries, who would have been able to provide staff with their names and details.
By contrast, some of the more severely injured were rushed into operating theatres for emergency surgery or placed in intensive care, without going through normal admission procedures. The need for an immediate medical response on unconscious patients meant that few if any details were documented. As a consequence, there was little information available about many of those who were critically ill.
The responsibility for providing information did not lie with the hospital staff: it was the role of the Casualty Bureau and the police more widely. The SYP Major Incident Manual reflected this, clearly instructing that when a Casualty Bureau needed to be set up in response to a major incident, police officers would be dispatched to hospitals. It stated: “The prime task of the hospital liaison officer at the hospital is to obtain and transmit information from the hospital to the Casualty Enquiry Bureau so that relatives and friends may be enabled to identify and trace injured persons as soon as possible. The second, but equally important task is to provide a line of communications between the hospital and Force Operations Room, and hence to the scene of the incident.”
The evidence indicates that this guidance was followed on 15 April 1989. Around the same time that the Casualty Bureau was activated, teams of police officers were deployed to relevant hospitals to act as liaison officers.
However, the liaison officers’ effectiveness was limited, in part due to communication problems with the Casualty Bureau, but also due to an apparent confusion as to their role.
One officer at the Northern General recalled that he was unable to assist much. He stated that he tried to call the gymnasium to help answer questions from families but struggled to get through. He did not mention contacting the Casualty Bureau.
The officer in charge of the police team at the Northern General, Insp Bennett, said that their role was to collate information about the injured and pass it to the Casualty Bureau. In a statement to Operation Resolve in 2013, he said that they “were not concerned about identification at that stage”, and the only way they could have identified those who had died would have been from information passed by the hospital staff. He added: “It was not our role to search any personal property or remove clothing.”
However, members of his team had a different view and described their involvement in exactly these tasks. They noted, however, that very few identifying documents were found.
Volunteers who went to assist at the hospitals, and some family members, have said they didn’t see police officers at all. It appears officers sought to work behind the scenes, but this added to the confusion and volunteers decided to do what they could independently.
Vicar Roger Atkins was directed to the Royal Hallamshire by police so he could assist. Having arrived at the hospital, he went to the waiting area with other volunteers. In a statement made in 2015, he said: “I eventually got tired of waiting for further instruction on what was required from us. I decided to go to the wards where the casualties from Hillsborough were situated. I found out where they were located by asking hospital staff.”
In a statement made in 2016, volunteer Amanda Mills explained that she went to the Royal Hallamshire from the Boys’ Club with a list of names to look for. She said that when she arrived, the hospital reception was “…packed with people trying to find information about missing persons from Hillsborough. Members of staff in the hospital were dealing with requests from people shouting out names of those they were trying to locate.”
With the help of a receptionist, she managed to locate the people she was looking for, then returned to the Boys’ Club to pass on the positive news. She made three similar visits to the hospital and said that as far as she could recall, she found everyone she was looking for. She did not mention any police officers being present at the hospital.
Brian Ibell was Assistant General Manager at the Northern General. In a statement to Operation Resolve, he described how he gathered available information about those who had died and the injured and then went to the canteen area to speak to the families. He recalled that he introduced himself, explained what information he had and told the people there that he would return to the canteen every two hours or so to update them. He said that as the police passed him information, he stood on a table to address the relatives. He said that by the early hours of the morning, there were 200–300 people present. He recalled speaking to the friends and families about seven times in that way throughout the day and night.
At a certain point in the evening, Dr Popper issued an instruction that all those who had died be transferred from the hospitals to the gymnasium for the formal identification process. This transfer commenced without informing relatives who were waiting for news of their loved ones, causing considerable upset. While the decision was made by Dr Popper, there was scope for the police to challenge the decision or at least mitigate the worse effects through better communication and coordination. The fact that the police at the hospital were taken by surprise by the decision reflects the lack of communication and coordination that typified the wider operation after the disaster.
