Page 19 - QARANC Spring 2024

‘The others had
amazing citations, I
wasn’t expecting to win’
Lt Bradley Setchell, a 28-year-old QA, scooped
the Rising Star of the Year Award at the inaugural LGBTQ+ Defence Awards in October. It was a proud moment in the career of a young man who goes
the extra mile for the military, his patients and the LGBTQ+ community.
When Bradley Setchell was awarded the MacRobert Sword for being the best officer cadet of his cohort at Sandhurst it marked him out as ‘one to watch.’ That promise was further emphasised at the LGBTQ+ Defence Awards in October, when Bradley was called on stage at the Grand Connaught Hotel in Covent Garden to receive the Rising Star of the Year Award, amid the cheers and congratulations of colleagues.
Bradley recalled: “I was at the table with my squadron commander, and they read through the nominees. They all had amazing citations, so I wasn’t expecting to win at all and when they announced my name, I was overwhelmed!
“I was an Air Cadet aged 12 and all the way to 20. Then I was at University Air Squadron for the East Midlands while I was studying my nursing degree. So, in one way or another, I’ve always been involved in the military.”
Bradley grew up in Leicester, where a neighbour in his street volunteered with the local air cadet unit. This is how he learned of the air cadets and credits them with developing him into the person he is today. He is currently an Army reservist with the 306 Hospital Support Regiment and a registered nurse working in paediatric intensive care at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, part of the Guy’s and St Thomas NHS Foundation Trust.
“The NHS is almost undeniably the best organisation to work in for clinical development,” said Bradley, citing the exposure to a wide variety
The NHS
is almost undeniably the best organisation to work in for clinical development
of patients. He also benefits from the flexibility his employers show – as a gold awarded employer – to make use of two weeks additional leave to complete his annual mandatory training requirements.
Mostly, Bradley works full time and devotes his weekends to the Reserves. He still makes time to fit in sport and a social life. “I’ve managed to find a way to achieve a work life balance but, in a shift working role involving nights and weekends, it needs a lot of advanced planning,” he concedes.
Bradley is the diversity and inclusion practitioner for his regiment, as well as the youth regiment media officer and a mentor for aspiring officers undergoing the selection process. He is the team captain of the Army Medical Services wakeboarding and waterskiing team, is also in their swimming team and mastered ballroom dancing to compete in a ‘Strictly’ style contest to raise money for the Blue Skies fund.
In his day job Bradley has undertaken a major research project assessing the effectiveness of pressure injury preventative care strategies for children admitted to intensive care. In April 2023, he was published in an international journal and presented to the Research International Conference in Helsinki.
The Gazette QARANC Association 19