Manchester Arena Inquiry: Ambulance boss defends time it took to treat the injured

Jonathan Butler was a tactical adviser for North West Ambulance Service on the night of the bomb

An ambulance manager has defended the time it took to treat casualties of the Manchester Arena terror attack.

Only three paramedics went into the bomb site and the badly injured were still being carried out on makeshift stretchers an hour after the blast.

North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) tactical adviser Jonathan Butler told the public inquiry he regarded the response to be quite quick.

Some critically ill casualties waited up to three hours to get to hospital.

Twenty-two people died and hundreds more were injured when a suicide bomber detonated a device in the venue's City Room foyer at 22:31 BST on 22 May 2017.

Mr Butler told the hearing: "Given the fact that we entered the City Room around 22:50 and the fact that we'd got everyone down from the City Room by 23:40, that in some respects is quite a quick affair in relation to getting patients down."

He was asleep at home when he was alerted to the explosion and was initially sent to the scene but was then re-directed to the joint emergency services command suite at Greater Manchester Police HQ.

He arrived there around one hour and 40 minutes after the explosion.

'Silo working'

Mr Butler admitted that the "multi-agency approach and interaction" within the command room "appeared poor".

He told the inquiry the "fantastic normal interaction" was absent on the night.

In a debrief document he wrote "I felt that there was a distinct lack of shared situational awareness" and "silo working was evident".

The inquiry was told Mr Butler delivers training in joint emergency working.

He said: "You can train and train and train and give everybody instruction but it was such a difficult and traumatic time."

Mr Butler said communication between emergency services was improved after the atrocity with the creation of a joint radio channel which is monitored 24 hours a day.

"How it can be improved initially, I believe that was all about communications."

The inquiry continues.

Twenty-two people were killed in the May 2017 bombing

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