Page 44 - QARANC Vol 20 No 2 2022

44 The Gazette QARANC Association
‘A real pleasure to work alongside international partners’
Ground Manoeuvrable Surgical Group (GMSG) is a recent concept within field hospitals. A UK GMSG is a scalable modular and light deployed medical treatment facility, which provides high capability but low capacity. It is designed to provide intimate support to dispersed ground forces with only a small but highly skilled team with limited equipment.
Having been introduced to the concept and been involved with some introductory training with my own unit, I was very curious how other nations ran a GMSG and was eager to compare notes.
For example, the French GMSG teams are known as Antenne, like the English word antenna. Teams train to operate at length from larger medical treatment facilities and have the capacity to move quickly and bunny hop closer to the battle group if required.
With my French travel dictionary packed, our small UK team of nurses, doctors, biomedical technicians and operating department practitioners as well as support staff, arrived late at night into Valbonne in Lyon, France. A beautiful military base illuminated under the light of the moon.
We were taken to our accommodation and to everyone’s surprise to facilities which bore more resemblance to a hotel room than that of a military base. The fluffy rug, (which matched the curtains and cushions!!), the en- suite, coffee machine and welcome chocolates had our group chat buzzing.
We met the design team of the French GMSG, and I was delighted to learn they were both nurses, one of whom was a nurse anaesthetist. They told of their enjoyment at designing this new concept for deployment and then their pride when it was finally approved for use. After listening and learning about the facility my curiosity and eagerness to see their teams training increased.
The rest of the day was spent watching the teams set up tentage and receive patients in slow time; then discharge patients and move the facility to another location. I watched eagerly at the teams who were demonstrating and time trialling every part of the patient’s pathway and the GMSG function and manoeuvrability and was
cautiously documenting every detail into my notebook, as I recognised that we may have to run a montage of our own.
Day two we built the tentage once again in preparation for the first montage with real life causalities and high-fidelity simulation. It was fascinating to watch and then subsequently be involved in and consequently have a real insight and understanding to their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
The simulation team were incredibly talented and created some challenging scenarios and situations for the Antenne to respond to. However, they were keen to see how their international partners could cope with the pressures; and invited us to take our turn in managing their GMSG facility.
It began with small numbers of casualties at first, but then they flooded the facility to full capacity with casualties both real and simulated; to assess how we managed. Considering we were working with different equipment, new SOPs and with a team that had not worked together previously; we demonstrated that our training, operational knowledge as well as our resilience in challenging situations made us not only succeed but impress our French colleagues.
The Simulation team were determined to test not only our clinical judgement but also our command and control; but overall the Antenne and the simulation team were excited with how smoothly it ran without fuss.
From day one I felt part of the team, everyone tried to include us in the learning and enjoyment of what the GMSG concept was and how it was to be utilised. I left with a greater understanding of the French GMSG environment, SOPs, its utility and mostly how easy it is to work alongside international partners such as the French Antenne.
It was reassuring and a real pleasure to be a part of this exercise and work alongside international partners, I just hope we will have more opportunity to do this in the future and strengthen those relationships which may someday be crucial.
Capt Ruth Matchett,
Theatre Nursing Officer
204 (North Irish) Field Hospital Belfast