Page 4 - RADC 2020

FOREWORD
Foreword
Col T Davies, QHDS Chief Dental Officer (Army)
The year 2020 will stand out in history
as a different year, due to the impact
of COVID-19 throughout the world. However, despite the resultant country- wide hiatus to the delivery of primary care dentistry in the spring, RADC personnel have continued to excel, proving their agility, flexibility and worth to benefit their patients, the Army, Defence and the realm.
I wish to thank Maj Serena Darke for putting together such an excellent Bulletin this year; and to those of you who enabled it to happen by contributing your own time to writing the articles. This edition exemplifies more than ever the rich diversity of roles and activities that RADC personnel are involved in.
A few months ago I wrote in the Newsletter “ As we start to move forward over the next few months and increase
our capability for Force Generation I will require all of you to continue to lean into this task with increasing
flexibility as you have
had to so far”. It is
commendable that
you have done exactly
that, and you continue
to make me proud
and are a credit to the
Corps. It is the nature
of our primary role that
the most of us spend
the majority of our
time providing dental
care to our PAR.
However, this year you
have shown admirable
resilience and can-do
attitude, providing excellent care despite the additional challenges. Well done.
As we progress through our military careers, both as soldiers and as officers, we gain more exposure to business outside our primary role and become more aware of the pressures and challenges to the RADC. The size of the RHQ element has been severely depleted over my years in the Service and the phrase “secondary duty” has become an omnipresent requirement added to already busy roles as a necessity in order to get tasks completed. For all of you who have been given such “opportunities” I make no apology, as without doing so our position would be far worse. However, I do recognise the incredible effort you all give so willingly and give you my utmost thanks for all your endeavours. The expression to “give a busy person a job” has never been so apt.
The majority of our personnel are committed to clinical delivery, either in the Firm Base as part of DPHC, or as part of
Army Medical Regiment units also in the Firm Base or on Operations. However, I
am utterly grateful for the support of those OF4s and 3s in clinical and staff roles who have provided time to assist on various projects over the course of the year, as well as to our Representative Sgt Maj, WO1 Humphreys, Regimental Secretary, John Sharp and our Colonels Commandant, Colonels Quentin Anderson and Irene Amberton. We have worked together to deliver a strong defence to cuts sought from the RADC by the DMS Senior Leadership Team in order to balance the demands of Annual Budgetary Cycle 21 (ABC 21). These proposed cuts are currently undergoing single Service arbitration and we are still awaiting final decisions on these, but we have worked tirelessly to support the best outcomes.
Many of you will have heard of the DHDO (Defence Healthcare Delivery Optimisation)
programme, and UCM (Unified Career Management). Both continue to press on in the background of all that is happening, with UCM due
to come to Initial Operating Capacity (IOC) early in 2021 with Full Operating Capacity (FOC) arriving Jun 2022. These programmes may bring major changes to some aspects of our service
but fundamentally the way we deliver face- to-face dentistry (or should that be mask
to face dentistry!) will not. All such changes must be seized as opportunities by all RADC personnel so that we can continue to adapt, evolve and do what we do best, as we have done over our 99 years of existence and never more so than over the present year.
Throughout this Bulletin, you will notice some names will pop up in more than one article, be those articles on a certain role,
a sport or a charity event. I will endeavour
to support as many of you as possible
in continuing to get as much out of your Army career as reasonably conceivable; taking those opportunities to do something different is why we joined in the first place.
I am sure, as you will see later in this magazine, that Sgt Becky Bell took the fact that she had to receive sutures for her rugby injury as an opportunity just as she will have for being the Defence Medical Academy
D&I Lead. LCpl Monica Cacho (3MR) who
is mentioned in 3 articles may have thought Ex NORTHERN SERPENT was preparing for deployed service in other countries. However, as I write this, she has now been working for several weeks in Chester, using the Portable Dental Unit (PDU) and other equipment only normally seen on exercises and deployments, in a proof of concept of a new capability known as a Dental Readiness Preparation Team (DRPT). This is a facility that increases equipment and personnel capacity to support DPHC at isolated sites with PAR at Readiness. This is an exciting example of how we have adapted outside
of existing doctrine to meet the needs of the Army. LCpl Cacho along with LCpl Emma Larwood (5MR), Maj George Cheesbrough (3MR) and Maj Christoph Harper (5MR) have been working tirelessly and systematically through Category 3 patients in tents and in the local Training Wing with reinforcement from Regional RADC DPHC personnel. This is proving that Army can support DPHC
in the Firm Base whilst providing the best form of clinical deployment training for
our personnel - this is another opportunity seized and one which will probably feature in an article next year.
As I write this Foreword, Defence has been promised a multi-billion pound increase in funding for the next few years, which is great news but we cannot be so naive as
to think that much, if any of this money, will come into a military dentistry funding stream. However, if we continue to deliver at all levels, in whatever role we fill, the RADC will continue to provide what Defence requires of us, a uniformed military occupational dental service whose personnel can be relied upon to not just step up to required tasks but to deliver flexibility and agility in order to confront whatever challenges are set before us.
So, for a few seconds, stand up straight, take a few hard-earned breaths and pat yourselves on the back. Then step forward once more into fray - well done and thank you all for your efforts.
Ex Dentibus Ensis
All such changes must be seized as opportunities by all RADC personnel so that we can continue to adapt, evolve and do what we do best...
2 RADC BULLETIN 2020