The Ministry of Defence has allocated up to £50 million over four years for battlefield medical equipment, blood products, treatments for severe bleeding and field hospital equipment as it seeks to rebuild Defence Medical Services capacity for larger-scale operations, the department has said.
The funding was set out in a written parliamentary answer to Conservative MP Stuart Anderson, who asked the Defence Secretary what capabilities were planned for the Defence Medical Services in terms of capacity and specialised medical care. Veterans and People Minister Calvin Bailey said the DMS supports Defence outputs across the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force and Cyber and Specialist Operations Command, including NATO commitments, crisis response, strategic resilience and global competition.
Bailey said: “The Strategic Defence Review recognised the need to rebuild both medical capacity and capability within Defence to ensure our Armed Forces remain fighting fit in peacetime and are prepared to meet operational demands when at war.” He said the immediate priority was to make the best use of existing capability so that the Defence Medical Services could reliably provide the support required by the Armed Forces today.
The second priority is the modernisation of operational medical capability and the healthcare support needed to generate forces for deployment. Bailey said: “The second priority is to modernise operational medical capability and the healthcare support to force generation to meet the demands of contemporary warfare and evolving clinical practice. To accelerate modernisation, Defence has allocated up to £50 million through the Defence Investment Plan over four years, focused on delivering priority capability enhancements.”
Of that funding, £20 million has been allocated to Tactical Combat Casualty Care, providing kits for combat personnel based on the latest research into equipment intended to save lives on the battlefield. A further £10 million will be used to develop or procure dried blood products for use forward, while £10 million has been allocated to Tranexamic Acid, or TXA, to improve the treatment of severe blood loss. The remaining £10 million will go towards field hospital equipment intended to support combat operations at scale.
The MOD is also preparing for a longer-term expansion of military medical capacity. Bailey said: “The third priority is to prepare to expand medical capacity to deliver the Strategic Defence Review’s vision of enhanced warfighting readiness.”
According to the minister, rebuilding Defence medical capability will concentrate on four functions: “Medically preparing the Integrated Force; maximising deployable medical capability and capacity within available resources; managing scalable and adaptable Operational Patient Care Pathways from point of injury or illness to definitive care and rehabilitation in collaboration with allies and UK healthcare systems; [and] building on our world class military medical research to adapt medical advances to gain operational advantage.”
