How do organisations continue to make effective decisions, protect their people and deliver critical care when pressure is sustained, resources are stretched and circumstances change by the hour?
For the World Extreme Medicine Fund (WEM Fund), these questions are grounded in four years of frontline experience in Ukraine.
On Thursday 17th September, the team will bring that experience to the 2026 Emergency Services Show in Birmingham. The session will explore what Ukraine’s response can teach UK emergency services about organisational resilience, operational readiness and maintaining capability during prolonged crises.
Four years of frontline learning in Ukraine
Since February 2022, WEM Fund (previously known as Medics4Ukraine) teams have worked on the ground in Ukraine, supporting humanitarian and frontline medical initiatives where healthcare systems have been overwhelmed or placed under threat.
The work has ranged from delivering trauma aid and essential medical resources to training frontline medical personnel and strengthening local capability. To date, WEM Fund has delivered nearly £5 million in trauma aid, trained more than 1,700 frontline medical personnel and provided over 4,000 training days in Ukraine.
This sustained presence has offered a rare perspective on how people and organisations respond when operational pressure is not a short-lived exception, but a continuing reality.
Working alongside NATO and international partners, including the Command of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Arkansas Colleges of Health Education (ACHE), WEM Fund has seen how quickly systems must learn, adapt and evolve when the context around them refuses to stand still.
Organisational resilience begins before the emergency
Resilience is often discussed in the aftermath of a major incident, but when put into practice, it is built much earlier.
It develops through leadership that can make clear decisions under uncertainty, training that reflects the realities teams may face, systems that allow organisations to work effectively together, and a culture that treats learning as an ongoing operational responsibility.
These foundations matter in any emergency setting, as they become critical when a response must be sustained over days, weeks or years.
The experience in Ukraine highlights four connected areas that can help strengthen organisational resilience in emergency services:
Leadership under sustained pressure
Major incidents demand more than a rapid initial response. Leaders must maintain direction as information changes, resources become constrained and teams face fatigue. Preparing people to lead through uncertainty is therefore just as important as preparing them to respond to a single event.
Training for reality, not predictability
Protocols provide an essential foundation, but no plan survives unchanged when conditions evolve. Training must give teams the confidence to apply their knowledge in unfamiliar circumstances, make sound decisions with limited information and adapt without losing sight of safe, effective care.
Interoperability across organisations
Complex emergencies rarely sit neatly within one service, organisation or area of expertise. Strong relationships, shared understanding and clear communication need to exist before they are tested. Interoperability is not simply a technical requirement. It is a practical capability built through working and training together.
Learning and adapting at pace
Some of the most valuable knowledge comes directly from the people working closest to the problem. Resilient organisations create ways to capture that experience, share it quickly and use it to improve their next response.
Building local capability rather than dependency
One of the clearest lessons from WEM Fund’s work is that effective humanitarian support must strengthen the people and systems already operating within a community.
The aim is not to create long-term reliance on outside assistance. It is to respond to immediate needs while supporting sustainable, locally informed capability that can continue to grow.
In Ukraine, this has meant working alongside frontline teams, responding to the challenges they identify and adapting training as their own expertise develops through real-world experience. Members of the WEM Fund team have received three humanitarian medals in recognition of this work, but its most meaningful measure is the capability that remains with the people delivering care.
This principle also has relevance for emergency preparedness in the UK. Resilience becomes stronger when knowledge is shared, teams are trusted and people closest to an incident are equipped to act.
Bringing frontline lessons to the 2026 Emergency Services Show
Mark Hannaford and Luca Alfatti, co-founders of WEM Fund, will be joined by Richard Lewis, COO of World Extreme Medicine. Together, they will share lessons from four years of delivering humanitarian aid, frontline medical capability and trauma training across Ukraine.
The discussion will consider how these insights can support practical organisational readiness in the UK, with a focus on leadership, training, interoperability and the ability to learn under pressure.
Richard explains: “Resilience isn’t something organisations can simply switch on when a major incident happens. It is built beforehand through leadership, training, interoperability and people’s ability to learn and adapt.”
For emergency service leaders, educators and frontline personnel, the session offers an opportunity to look beyond a single response model and consider how organisations can prepare to remain effective when pressure is prolonged.
A wider commitment to locally led medical support
Ukraine remains a major focus of WEM Fund’s work, but the same commitment to immediate response and long-term local resilience extends further.
The charity has provided medical support in countries affected by conflict, including Myanmar and Syria, and supported educational initiatives in Namibia. In each setting, the response is shaped by what is needed locally, from trauma casualty care and medical resources to training and capacity building.
WEM Fund is a non-political, independent organisation. Its purpose is to help communities and frontline teams build the skills, resources and confidence needed to deliver care in the most challenging circumstances.
Find out more about the work of the World Extreme Medicine Fund and how you can support it at wemfund.com.
How You Can Help
→ Learn more and book the WEM Fund Prolonged Field Care Course.
WEMF operates as a restricted fund under Humanitas (UK Registered Charity Number 1114639), Gift Aid claims are managed by Humanitas.