Page 49 - QARANC Vol 16 No 2 2018

Royal Centre for Defence Medicine Corps Day Celebrations
The Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) celebrated the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps day on 27 March 2018.
In keeping with unit norms, the day started with a physical training session comprising mainly enjoyable team building activities at the newly built University of Birmingham gym.
The rest of the day was held at the state of the art Glenart Castle Mess where attendees enjoyed elevenses and had the opportunity to enjoy the fellowship of their fellow QAs, sharing stories and experiences.
After elevenses, Father David Smith RAChD conducted a wonderful service, complete with hymns, prayers, remembrance and the laying of a wreath. The service provided the perfect opportunity to remember those who are no longer here with us, and an opportunity for solemn reflection on one’s own life.
We had the honour to host members of the Midlands QA Association Branch whose presence added real character and improved the richness of the day. The theme of the event was ‘QARANC, past, present and future’. The audience heard from Kevin Crimmonds and Sue Reading, both from the QA Association. They delivered short reflective talks on the QARANC from a historical perspective. The content was exciting, light-hearted but contained extremely useful counsel.
Sergeant Kerry Fleming then delivered a talk on the current challenges and dynamism of the QARANC, highlighting the diverse skill mix of nurses and the very impressive extracurricular achievements of some of the nurses in the audience.
After a wonderful lunch where the ESS staff at the mess demonstrated their culinary genius, we heard from David Hornsby, the Matron of the Emergency Department (ED) at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB). David delivered a talk titled ‘Synergy; QARANC and QEHB’ where he spoke about the synergistic excellence that exists
RCDM Corps Day celebration cake – looking delicious and surely a contender for any ‘bake-off’!
THE GAZETTE QARANC
within ED as a result of working with QAs.
We then heard from a representative of the QEHB Charity, Tara Sullivan. Tara delivered a short talk on the good work of the charity which highlighted their various projects and the contribution the charity makes to the improvement of care delivery, support to patient family and the support for medical and health research. Of particular note is Fisher House, a home away from home for the family of military inpatients at the hospital which the charity funds.
The Officer Commanding Clinical Division, Lieutenant Colonel Dutton
MBE delivered the closing brief after which she cut the cake and attendees enjoyed afternoon tea in the company of their fellow QAs.
We would like to thank the QARANC Association at RHQ for sponsoring this event. In particular, we would like to thank Sue McAteer, the General Secretary of the QARANC Association for her support. We would also like to express gratitude to the QEHB Charity for their significant financial contribution, which helped to fund the day. We remain grateful to all the speakers and guests for their pivotal contribution to the event.
Lieutenant Paul Erhahiemen
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BRANCH NEWS