Page 134 - RAPTC Year of 2019

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REGIONAL REHABILITATION UNIT (RRU) COSFORD
Another busy year has come and gone at RRU Cosford as the department again experienced a large volume of patient inflow and staff turnover whilst maintaining a broad and diverse commitment to rehab and wider service activity.
Inwardly the RRU continues to grow and develop Rehab delivery, focusing on enhancing the 24 residential courses run annually, which consist predominantly a mixture of lower limb and spines with two to four upper quadrant courses. The RRU has been developing and redesigning spines outcome measures with a focus towards the soldier conditioning review (SCR) while also evolving the course structure, focusing on patient feedback and best practice guidelines.
The RRU has experienced a significant changeover of personalities, saying farewell to Maj Elaine Radcliffe (posted to QEH Birmingham) and welcoming Maj Andy Wareham who arrived to take up the OC role from Stanford hall where he worked in Complex Trauma. The RRU also bid farewell to WO1 (SMI) Daryl Slade-Jones who has moved onwards and upwards to the TSA (ARMY) role in Stanford Hall and welcomed as his replacement WO2 (QMSI) Lee Cubbage who was previously at the Army School of Physical Training (ASPT) working at the forefront of Project Thor within the CDC team.
Sgt Edwards coaching deadlift
Upper quadrant Individual programme
Currently, Sgt (SI) Edwards is working on the way the RRU delivers training, ensuring that all course content follows a standardised approach which provides a progressive periodized system of training thereby setting an example to our patients on how a training programme should look with a focus on ‘earning the right’ to progress.
SSgt (SSI) Francis is focusing on the holistic development of the RRU course content with the new Recovery Resilience Package covering Mindfulness, Stress, Nutrition, Reflection and Sleep. This maintains a primary care ethos, providing a coaching framework which supports positive habits and behaviours from an evidence-based approach. The benefits of which have been vital in aiding a patient’s rehabilitation and recovery on the courses at the RRU.
As a result of patient feedback, the team has also been working on the gymnasium infrastructure with the aim making the gym a better functioning environment. This involved reorganising the layout and the upscaling of functional gym equipment to provide a linkage to the changing training demands and methods emerging in all levels of service PD.
The RRU staff are looking forward to implementing the new practices and procedures that we have all been working on and look forward to delivering this as a regional package later this year.
Sgt (SI) R Edwards RAPTC
AFGHANISTAN NATIONAL ARMY OFFICER ACADEMY, OP TORAL
Sgt (SI) L Barrigan RAPTC
On the 24th March 2019 I deployed to Afghanistan as part of OP TORAL 9. I deployed as part of a multi-national team to fill the role of Female Physical Training (PT) Mentor at
the Afghanistan National Army Officer Academy (ANAOA). After meeting the team and completing some in-theatre training we finally made it to Camp Qargha where we were met by the happy faces of the team we were there to replace, including Sgt (SI) Y Kemp RAPTC. Fortunately, we had a two week handover takeover period so Sgt Kemp was able to fill me in on everything that the job entailed. We also had the opportunity to go down to the Academy and meet the male and female Physical Training staff together.
It soon became clear that I was about to have a challenging but very rewarding time in post. ANAOA is modelled on Sandhurst, aiming to produce Commissioned Officers for the Afghan National Army through a one year commissioning course, split into three terms. We had arrived right at the end of term, which meant the emphasis of training was on the upcoming Pass Off Parade,
Flying the flag over Kabul. Sgt Barrigan, Cpl Dunn (BFP) and Cpl Maguire (AFP)