Joint exercises on triage procedure

All of those involved in maritime SAR recognise the importance and value of joint exercises on the recovery of multiple persons from the water. HMCG and BSC have participated in RNLI’s annual mass rescue live-play exercise in 2023, 2024 and 2025 and will continue to do so. The Multiple Persons in Water Triage Tool was tested in the last two live-play exercises and will be tested again in the exercise planned for October 2026.

The Department for Transport published its interim response to the Cranston Inquiry in July 2026, which included updates against this recommendation. This update noted that many of the recommendations - including this one - have been marked as complete but are necessarily based on an on-going approach, rather than having a single end point. The Department (DfT), the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), and His Majesty’s Coastguard (HMCG) are committed to on-going learning and improvement, and will regularly review processes and practices, learning from best practice, to ensure that they are fit to meet the evolving challenges of maritime search and rescue (SAR). Due to the operational and ongoing nature of these recommendations, the MCA has established an internal process of monitoring, verifying and reporting against recommendations that are its responsibility, noting that many recommendations require an on-going approach rather than reaching a single, fixed point.