Page 4 - QARANC Vol 14 No 7 2013

2 QARANC THE GAZETTE
DANS Foreword
It is with great honour and pleasure that I write my first foreword as your Director. I am looking forward to the privilege of serving you all during my tenure.
Colonel Pete wrote about the turbulence caused by fiscal and operational pressures in the last issue and this is unremitting. Having completed three tours of MOD and in my last appointment as Defence Nursing Advisor to the Surgeon General I am well aware of the issues that face us immediately and have some awareness of what might follow the next Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2015. This is being war-gamed in October by the Senior Defence Medical Services Strategy Group in October so that we are ‘forward leaning’, proactive and able to influence rather than reacting to what is often only ‘First Order Change’ or making savings. No doubt there will be more on this in the next and subsequent issues!
In the meantime we continue to support Operation HERRICK, our declared main effort, and 203 Field Hospital are busy preparing to take over authority for the UK Role 3 in Camp BASTION from 33 Field Hospital later this year. I am proud to boast that both units are currently commanded by QAs. I was with Lieutenant Colonel Steve Archer and his team on the ground in Afghanistan accompanying Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer
for England, on her first visit to theatre in July. The purpose of this visit was to orientate her to what military nurses do on deployment and to emphasise the importance of our Reserves, who mainly work in the NHS of course along with our Regular secondary healthcare practitioners who are supported by the NHS whilst working in Ministry of Defence Hospital Units or major trauma centres in the future. Primary care is in the ascendancy at last and I foresee many QAs deploying to developing countries either supporting small force elements on exercises and missions or delivering humanitarian assistance and health sector reform. This is not new of course; Colonels Jane Davis and Kevin Davies have been doing this for years as many more of us had the opportunities to do prior to the latest operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is likely to become a growth industry.
Challenging and exciting times need innovative people and leaders with the behaviours that make second and even third order changes happen, not just saving the pennies. I believe that we have that innovation in our Corps and propose that Regulars, Reserves, Veterans, families and friends go ‘forward as one’ to steal the Infantry’s strap-line. I therefore encourage you all to contribute to our Corps’ development by using the Gazette, the Association and its Branches, contributing to the AGM and the
Reunion Lunch, attending Regimental Dinners and the annual Cocktail Party, e-mailing, writing or even telephoning me with your good ideas or frustrations for the betterment of the Corps. Our single aim is to optimise operational capability and you all have something to contribute. I intend to use the annual symposium as a vehicle to consolidate our gains and as a platform for you to celebrate your successes.
Helen and I look forward to meeting as many of you as we can over the next two and a half years. Please remember that the Association’s motto is ‘Friendship’ or translated to ‘mateship’ for the blokes and ANZACs. This is a theme that I intend to develop during my brief time as DANS because I believe that it is critical to developing the moral component in our young soldiers and officers. That is the will to complete the mission even in hostile and clinically austere environments. This is what makes military nursing different.
So please don’t be strangers. Encourage your friends or mates to join the Association and be part of a very active and vibrant society.
Sub Cruce Candida in Friendship (or mateship).
Chairman’s Message
I am writing this in July whilst wondering whether the hot weather we are all experiencing will last much longer! Amazing how we complain about the weather - either it is too wet or too cold or too hot!! For those gardeners amongst you, maybe you can answer the question as to why my weeds grow much faster and healthier than my carefully tended plants and shrubs?
We had a lovely day for the re-dedication ceremony of the QARANC plot at the National Memorial Arboretum on 4 June, which was attended by both regular and retired members of the Corps. The AGM and reunion lunch was also well supported this year and it was so nice to see serving personnel attending. I would certainly like to take this opportunity to encourage other serving personnel to attend next year.
The Central Committee of the Trustees meets 4 times a year to discuss Association matters and to review applications for assistance and for grants. May I remind members that all applications for Adventurous Training
and associated tours/trips should be submitted no later than 4 weeks in advance of these meetings. Provisional dates for 2014 are - 22 Jan, 16 Apr, 9 Jul and 8 Oct. Benevolence cases are also reviewed on these dates but any urgent requests can be met out of committee. I would like to continue with the theme of timeliness with regard to the Gazette - hopefully our restructuring of recent editions has met with approval - but it would be extremely beneficial for the Editor if submissions were forwarded as early as possible to enable her to ‘spread the workload’ instead of all arriving at the last minute!
Finally, the Corps and Association are bidding farewell to Col Peter Childerley as he retires this Autumn after 37 years service - starting out initially in the RAMC as all male nursing personnel had to do at the time, before moving to the QARANC in 1992. On behalf of all members of the Association, I would like to take this opportunity to wish the President and his wife Bridget a long and happy retirement in their new home in Norfolk.