Page 40 - RADC 2020

C&S JOBS
Sub-Unit Command
Maj J Wilson
Writing this article now feels quite apposite as I finish my Sub-Unit Command
(SUC) role and head back to the staff,
an environment that feels as familiar as
the Dental Centre once did. I applied for ICSC(L) after 10 years of clinical practice; I’d had some pretty plum jobs, being dentist to Princes William and Harry in my first job after Sandhurst, and a remarkable 5 years as DO then SDO Wellington Barracks. However, I knew that my natural home didn’t lie in the clinical sphere and I was selected for ICSC in 2016.
My Initial Grade 2 (IG2) was SO2 Med
at HQ Force Troops Command (FTC),
now 6th Division. FTC was an absolutely fascinating place to work; it was the biggest Division in the Army and looked after 11 specialist brigades from 2nd Medical Brigade to 1st Intelligence, Surveillance,
and Reconnaissance Brigade. I worked
to SO1 Med and the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCOS) who, at my initial interview said: “This will all be new to you, my advice is that you need to absolutely nail your day job, once you’ve done that, there are lots of opportunities out there for you to make your name”. This was some of the best advice I’ve ever been given to be honest. I nailed the Med job quite quickly, getting to grips with medical planning for operations and exercises (ACSO 3215 if you’re interested), planning for Op TRENTON in South Sudan, medical force generation, and a huge quality improvement programme for reserve special forces selection. Always on the lookout for
a bored staff officer, the command group quickly tasked me and I worked on behalf
of the GOC for 3 months on the operational planning team for the Army’s Empowerment project. Alongside this, I ran the Divisional Quarterly Performance and Risk Review, collating risks submitted by the Brigade HQs and running the board to decide which risks would be raised to Commander Field Army. This role was amazing for my military education and situational awareness; I
know far more about Beyond Line Of Sight communication systems and rehoming military working dogs than I ever imagined
I would. My final project was to conduct
a review of theatre enablement capability which helped to develop the concept of
the Theatre Enablement Group, something
I would return to in my SUC role. Working on the staff is invigorating and definitely something that matches your input. The more work you do, the more opportunities you get. Highly recommended.
After a busy 2 years at HQ FTC, I was fortunate enough to transfer to Group A Terms of Service and be selected for Sub-
Unit Command as Officer Commanding Clinical Squadron, at 22 Field Hospital. The first email I received was from the then CO saying: “great news, not sure what you’ve got planned for next year but don’t make any plans between July and Christmas”. I was delighted to be given the opportunity
of deploying a Field Hospital into the desert, the first time a tented Field Hospital had been deployed since 2006 when the unit deployed to Afghanistan. The CO wasn’t quite accurate in his statement; it turned out we would be in Oman for another 3 months at the beginning of 2019, supporting a much smaller exercise.
The unit, not only being the Very High Readiness Field Hospital, was tasked
with providing Real Life Support (RLS)
on Exercise SAIF SAREEA 3. So after literally 5 days in the job, my first trip away was to AMSTC in York to be assessed
on Ex JORVIK REFRESH. To say I had
no idea what I was doing would be an understatement, however, I was surrounded by an experienced team and I had a stack of doctrine to rely on. We successfully passed validation where I learnt my deployed role was to be 2IC Hospital, made up of about 60 personnel from the unit and 60 clinical Individual Augmentees drawn from Joint Hospital Groups across the UK. I would
be a Chief of Staff for the CO, ensuring the hospital ran day to day, dealing with G1 issues, managing risk and orchestrating the outputs of the SMEs. This allows the CO
to engage with the Theatre Enabling Group who provided us with our own RLS, food, ablutions, accommodation and transport.
I don’t think anyone could be prepared for the heat of Oman; it was absolutely brutal, well over 40 degrees by mid-morning every day. Fortunately, the QIP I had been involved in as an SO2 was centred around heat injury prevention so I was able to draw on my in-depth knowledge as well as reach out to colleagues I had worked with previously; this allowed me to write what I remain convinced is the most robust Heat Acclimatisation
Risk Management plan any OC has written ever. Ex SAIF SREEA 2 was famous for not only melting boots and artillery shells but also the fact that the Field Hospital itself
had sustained a significant number of heat casualties during the build phase. I was absolutely determined that this would not be the case this time and we managed to construct a bespoke configuration of the 2,1,2,12 hospital in 5 days, with only one working day lost to illness. The hospital opened on time and allowed the movement of troops and equipment to begin in support of the exercise. It’s traditional to hold a brief
flag-raising ceremony to declare the hospital open and I have to say, it was probably
the proudest moment of my military career to date. Riding on a wave of confidence, I soon realised that SUC is a great leveller, G1 issues across the hospital were probably the most time-consuming issue for me to deal with. These ranged from service complaints to family bereavements, extended periods
of inefficiency, insubordination, Equality and Diversity issues, and so on. The exercise itself passed without incident; we had a steady trickle of patients with a mixture of trauma and DNBI, largely related to the heat. We closed the hospital and repacked it for our second trip to Oman
Since we returned from Oman in April
last year and our VHR commitment passed to 34 Field Hospital and my Squadron has welcomed a significant number of Class
2 CMTs out of training in Lichfield. These
are some of the most highly motivated
and intelligent individuals I have ever come across. I take a significant amount of joy from the people I am fortunate enough
to command. I wanted to leave the organisation in a better place than I found it and I genuinely believe I have achieved this; it hasn’t been easy, I have had some of the most challenging conversations of my life during this job and I feel that I am ready to move on. SUC has been utterly rewarding though, and I would highly recommend it, be prepared to be humbled though.
I move roles very soon to take up the post of Executive Officer at HQ Field Army, an
E2 role which will see me working for COS Field Army, cohering outputs from 1* offices, and maintaining the Battle Rhythm of the Headquarters.
To conclude, working in the “big army” is as challenging as it is rewarding; it plays to many of the skills we take for granted as clinicians. Emotional intelligence is a layer we can add to our problem-solving and analytical skills that marks us out; we bring a different perspective to problem-solving. However, there are still difficult problems, difficult people, and difficult days. Just a different type of difficult.
38 RADC BULLETIN 2020