In October, a 7-strong team, led by Professor Paul Dark, spent time in Australia at the huge World Congress of Intensive Care Medicine, Melbourne. The team were invited to present some of their recent work, with the highlight being Prof Dark’s moving presentation around the impact on our city’s acute and trauma services following the Manchester Arena bomb in May 2017. This is a very sensitive topic with on going Coronial and Legal investigations, but Paul was able to describe how the city coped and what we learned from how we managed such a large and unexpected influx of injured patients, of all ages, and with injuries not usually seen in civilian life. Thanks to the preparatory work laid by researchers like Dr Martin Smith at the Greater Manchester Centre for Acute Care and Trauma Paul was able to explain how we captured details of patient flow and the impact on our elective and emergency healthcare services. Paul and the team have a high profile publication accepted, which is currently under embargo owing to the sensitivity of the content whilst the investigations are on going.