BFG Medical Personnel Receive Training From Brighton And Sussex University Hospitals Trust
Two senior practitioners from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust recently provided essential training to British Forces Gibraltar medical personnel.
A statement from British Forces Gibraltar follows below:
In the second week of September leading resuscitation training staff from Royal Sussex County Hospital visited Princess Royal Medical Centre (PRMC) Gibraltar in order to deliver Immediate Life Support and Paediatric Immediate Life Support training to medical staff.
The courses are an annual requirement for medics, nurses and doctors which include training on essential life saving techniques and equipment proven to significantly improve a casualty’s chance of survival in an emergency. The training team, voluntarily provided by the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals Trust, routinely support British Forces Gibraltar with this annual commitment.
This year, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, additional considerations required a supplementary level of planning which was carried out by Mr Alan Street and Mr David Bowen, the two visiting practitioners. This enabled the course to be delivered safely and appropriately in a COVID-19 environment.
The PRMC’s Principle Medical Officer Surgeon Commander Wood said: “All military medical personnel are obliged to maintain a high degree of clinical preparedness for acute and severe illness. Regular instruction and assessment form a key part of ensuring our skills are in line with current best practice. The fact that this team, from a highly regarded NHS Trust, has managed to come out here, to provide us with the training in our own building is enormously beneficial as it allows us to ‘train as we fight’ - in the same rooms, with the same colleagues and with the same equipment.”
He added: “One of the nuances of the PRMC is the large number of children that we provide care for - around about 25% of the BFGib population. We are particularly grateful for the expert paediatric emergency care training that we received. Of course, every clinical skill we learn and revise within the medical centre is a skill that we can take forward with us when we deploy on operations in the future.”
