Casualties Union

Casualties Union is a registered charity and independent voluntary organisation, that provides acting and reacting casualties and patients for the medical profession, emergency services and those teaching first aid, nursing and rescue. For over 80 years, we have continued to serve the community with the same dedication as when we started.

What we do…

Acting

Making the incident feel as realistic as possible to all involved

Staging

We pride ourselves on the realism of our incident staging

Makeup

Professional makeup techniques add to the realism of the injury and training

Who we are

We are unpaid volunteers, giving up spare time to perfect techniques and assist clients with their training

What we do

We create the illusion of illness or injury by makeup, staging and acting

Who we work with

First aiders, paramedics, doctors, nurses, police, fire-fighters, rescue teams and more

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Operating since 1942

We continue to develop our skills and techniques to match the changing needs of our clients.

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Professional Services

We train our members in the art of acting, makeup and staging to make their presentations as realistic as posisble.

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Large UK network

With several hundred members throughout England and Wales, we can provide our services in most areas of the UK.

Casualties Union is a UK-registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), charity no. 1200120, regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales. Our members volunteer their time to benefit the public, portraying realistic casualties and patients to support training for medical professionals, emergency responders, and first aid, nursing, and rescue instructors.

Our members use makeup and acting skills that have evolved since 1942 to a standard that is accepted and used by the UK’s top training hospitals, industry and emergency services.

All our injuries and acting are carefully researched and practised until they are perfect. We are incredibly grateful to some of the country’s most eminent medical people who advise us and guide us.

Our vision is that all victims of sudden accidents or medical emergencies should benefit from the skills of their rescuers and carers, who, in turn, have benefited from the realism we provide in their training.

Casualties Union has decades worth of experience 

Casualties Union evolved from the Surrey County Civil Defence Rescue School, set up during WWII by Eric Claxton to train in bringing bomb victims out of damaged buildings. He ran courses in which acting, made-up casualties were used to teach skills to rescuers. Casualties Union evolved from this school in 1942 and we are still going strong many decades later!

Some of our Clients