Dr Joe Cosgrove, Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne discusses his two articles "Prehospital organisation and management of a mass casualty incident" and "Hospital response to a major incident: initial considerations and longer term effects", published in the October 2016 edition of BJA Education. Topics include understanding the prehospital phase, the wider response to major incidents within NHS organisations, and how individual practitioners fit within this highly organised structure.