Nineteen medics from Portsmouth Flotilla ships have completed the first Combat Medic Course to be taught partly at sea, with practical training carried out aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth.
The course is delivered by the Defence Medical Academy and has run seven times before, but this was the first to put students on a warship. The Royal Navy describes it as the first time it has hosted the course “in a maritime environment”, part of a wider effort to modernise operational medical training and adopt a more consistent approach to casualty care across Defence and NATO partners.
The Combat Medic Course is designed for Royal Navy Medical Assistants, Army Combat Medical Technicians and RAF Medics. Previous iterations focused largely on land based scenarios.
The week long programme began in Portsmouth’s Ark Royal Building, where students were taught to manage “severe bleeding, airway injuries, breathing and circulation problems, head injuries, pain relief, wound management, splinting and prolonged casualty care”. Training then moved aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth for casualty treatment under simulated operational conditions, before written and practical examinations.
A spokesperson involved in the training said the maritime setting had proved instructive in itself. “It has allowed us to identify some of the unique challenges that operating at sea presents and will help us make further improvements to the course in the future,” they said.
The course sits under the Defence Medical Services’ Tactical Combat Casualty Care programme, which aims to train personnel across all three services using the same principles and procedures.
Lieutenant Greg Vardon-Smith, a spokesperson for the Maritime Medical Integrated Force Programme, said aligning with the wider Defence and NATO medical community ensures “our people speak the same medical language, apply the same principles under pressure” and deliver the best possible care wherever operations take them, “enhancing survivability across Defence”.
