Page 16 - RADC 2020

Op RESCRIPT
Maj S Gregory
COVID-19 lockdown saw 4 Armoured Medical Regiment sat with bergens packed on R1(24) and within an hour’s travel distance of Tidworth. I managed 3 days working from home, completing more COVID-related e-learning than I would ever wish to complete again. More importantly, having just baked a half-decent quiche, before receiving a call saying I was to take a team of Medical Liaison Officers to assist with the COVID-19 response. We were to report to Joint Military Command South East (JMC SE) in Aldershot by midnight (24 hours’ notice to move is a myth they said!).
With such a tight timeline, the team, Captain Eliot Digby-Jones RAMC, 2Lt Ollie Wadman RAMC, WO2 Bryan Jackson RAMC, and myself, left as fast as we could and arrived at Aldershot by 2200, where we were promptly told to come back tomorrow. Not to be disillusioned, we tried again the next day to be greeted with shrugged shoulders and raised eyebrows. Unfortunately, no one knew where we had been generated from and no one knew where we were going. The fog of war and all that...
Finally, in desperation, I ended up in front of Commander JMC SE, Brigadier Bateman, who thankfully seemed to be expecting us. We were to move forward to London as Military Medical Liaison Officers to assist NHS South East Head Office in planning their COVID-19 response and identifying MACA requests (Military aid to Civilian
Authorities) throughout. We were to be teamed up with two Military Planners, Major Peter (Pedro) Dobinson (RE) and Major Thomas Bucknell (RMP), who had come
in from Staff College (ICSC(L)) to make a team of 6. After a further 20 minutes of the Brigadier describing his overall plan for our team, of which I managed to grasp about half, I was given the key take down point - come back tomorrow...
Eventually, we had our RSOI (Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration) brief, which focused on the importance of supporting the civilian authorities in their response, and that this was NOT to be
a military solution. The teams who were heading out to work with the NHS and civilian organisations also had a brief on
the importance of not being ‘too military’ (something I was NOT going to have a problem with!) and to appear human and approachable. Military language was to be limited and all presentations and paperwork were to be on NHS templates.
The first task before deploying to London was to accompany the Brigadier on a recce of the Nightingale Excel Hospital site in anticipation of working on other Nightingale site proposals in the South East. The
senior officers were given a tour by Col Boram RAMC, who was leading the military assistance on the Excel site, whilst our team was syphoned off by Capt Sylvester RAMC, a very welcomed face who had only recently left 4 Med. He gave us a personal tour of the
View from millennium bridge during a run where we stopped to clap for the NHS with the Shard lit up blue
Excel from a medical planning perspective which would be invaluable in the weeks to come. Stood at the far end of one of the great halls with hospital bays stretching
out into the distance, it brought some reality to the scale of the potential impact
of COVID, and the size of the challenge
the NHS was facing. Not least because in building the Excel Nightingale, much of the existing stock of ventilators, hospital beds, and other materials held by the NHS had been used; therefore, future sites had to ensure adequate sources of supplies before beginning. It was a subdued car journey back to Aldershot that evening.
The following day 2Lt Wadman was left at Brigade HQ, as reach back into the J2 cell, and the remainder of us set off for London with our two new additions. We were all to be accommodated at the Union Jack Club (UJC) in Waterloo. The UJC reopened for key workers during the pandemic, and despite operating at a loss with as few as 40 people staying at one point, they continued to host without complaint throughout the duration of Op RESCRIPT, providing excellent food and hospitality throughout. We soon built up a rapport with the staff in the hotel, as well as the other key workers, and it became a home away from home very quickly. Our offices were 200m walk away and we walked it in uniform (socially distanced) every day, getting saluted by one of the doormen of Sainsbury’s every time we passed!
The team soon settled into the NHS SE
Training between the military, NHS, Ambulance service in anticipation of moving COVID patients to the Nightingale Hospital from the Isle of White by air. Please note this was prior to facemasks being made compulsory when within 2m and social distancing was maintained where possible whilst undertaking scenarios.
14 RADC BULLETIN 2020
COVID