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EchoBridge: Learning from Everyday Mortuary Practice to Strengthen Preparedness
Ashley Wadi presented “EchoBridge: Embedding Practical, Reflective Learning Across Mortuary Practice to inform Mass Fatality Preparedness” at the AEE 2026
Introduction
At the AAPT Annual Educational Event 2026, Ashley Wadi presented “EchoBridge: Embedding Practical, Reflective Learning Across Mortuary Practice to inform Mass Fatality Preparedness”.
The presentation explored an important question for the profession: how can the valuable learning generated through everyday mortuary practice be captured, shared and used to strengthen preparedness across the wider profession?
Mortuary professionals regularly work in environments where capacity pressures, communication challenges, bereavement support, workforce pressures, mortality surges and preparedness responsibilities can place significant demands on services. These experiences generate valuable professional learning every day – but are we consistently capturing and sharing that learning?
Learning from major events
Ashley highlighted lessons from the Manchester Arena attack, Grenfell Tower, COVID-19 and seasonal mortality surges.
While each situation is different, these events demonstrate the importance of effective communication, organisational learning, capacity planning, resilience and preparedness.
The presentation also made an important distinction between preparedness and deployment. Not every APT will want to participate in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), and participation in DVI is voluntary. However, major incidents begin locally, meaning that preparedness remains relevant to all mortuary services and professionals – whether or not an individual ever deploys as part of a DVI response.
Preparedness is already part of healthcare
Ashley drew comparisons with established areas of healthcare preparedness, such as fire safety training and basic life support.
These forms of training are not necessarily about making every member of staff a specialist. Instead, they equip people to recognise a situation, take appropriate immediate action, protect or support others, and escalate to specialist responders when required.
The presentation suggested that the same principle can inform thinking around mass-fatality preparedness within mortuary practice.
What can we learn from the literature?
As the first stage of the proposed work, Ashley undertook a scoping literature review, drawing on sources including NHS England Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) guidance, Human Tissue Authority publications, the Open University library, professional body publications, healthcare science literature and mortuary workforce research.
The existing literature provides considerable guidance around workforce wellbeing, preparedness and resilience, mortuary operations and professional development.
However, Ashley identified a potentially underexplored area: how experiential learning from frontline mortuary practitioners is systematically captured and shared.
The presentation highlighted several areas that appear less well described within the literature: experiential learning within mortuary practice, structured reflective frameworks, capturing frontline insights, knowledge transfer between mortuaries, and organisational learning from routine practice.
Building on existing APT education
APT education already places emphasis on communication, team working, governance, quality management, training and supervision.
The presentation recognised that existing RSPH qualifications support individual learning, but asked how learning gained by individuals might be transformed into knowledge that informs and benefits the wider professional community.
This creates an opportunity to explore how reflective practice and professional learning could contribute not only to individual development, but also to collective learning across the profession.
Introducing EchoBridge
The proposed EchoBridge model is based around a cycle of learning: experience, reflection, thematic review, knowledge sharing, and preparedness and professional learning.
One potential approach discussed was the anonymous sharing of reflections from AAPT CPD reflective portfolios, alongside the collection of additional reflections. These could then be thematically reviewed to identify common experiences, learning and themes that could contribute to wider professional knowledge.
The longer-term concept is an Annual Learning Report, bringing together common themes and insights to support preparedness and professional learning across the profession.
Importantly, EchoBridge remains a proposed development model for further exploration rather than an established AAPT programme.
From individual experience to collective learning
At its heart, EchoBridge asks whether the profession can make better use of something it already possesses: the considerable knowledge and experience generated by APTs in their everyday working lives.
A practitioner dealing with a particularly challenging period of increased workload, developing a new approach to communication, responding to an unexpected operational problem or reflecting on an incident may generate learning that could be valuable to colleagues elsewhere.
The concept is to explore whether existing reflective practice and CPD activity could provide a route for identifying common themes and sharing practical insights.
Ashley also identified important challenges and limitations, including confidentiality, workload and participation, evaluation and governance. These would need careful consideration in any future development.
What happens next?
The next proposed stage is a BSc Healthcare Sciences Honours Research Project, planned for February–August 2027. A further stage could potentially involve an AAPT working group to explore the concept in greater detail.
The presentation concluded with a simple but powerful observation: “Preparedness often begins with the lessons we learn through everyday practice.”
EchoBridge provides an opportunity to consider how those lessons might travel beyond the individual practitioner – helping to build a stronger culture of reflection, shared learning and preparedness across mortuary practice.
The AAPT would like to thank Ashley Wadi for sharing this thought-provoking presentation at AEE 2026.
Key takeaways
- Valuable learning is generated every day through the experiences of mortuary professionals, but there may be opportunities to capture and share that learning more systematically.
- Preparedness is relevant to all mortuary professionals, regardless of whether they choose to participate in DVI deployment.
- There appears to be an opportunity to connect individual reflective learning and CPD with wider professional and organisational learning.
- EchoBridge proposes a cycle of experience, reflection, thematic review and knowledge sharing to support preparedness and professional learning.
- Further research and development are proposed, with a BSc Healthcare Sciences Honours Research Project planned for February–August 2027 and a possible future AAPT working group.
Editorial note: This article has been drafted from Ashley Wadi’s AAPT AEE 2026 presentation. EchoBridge is presented as a proposed model for further exploration and should not be interpreted as an established AAPT programme or completed research project.