Military Medical Issues

MOD's desired outcome is to ensure the Defence Medical Service (DMS) doctrine and supporting policies deliver practical operational solutions for current and future clinical medical challenges. Research is required to generate knowledge underpinning future medical doctrine and supporting policies, with the aim of increasing combat effectiveness and pre-operation military effectiveness within the Duty of Care, to maximize the number of personnel fit for task. Treatments for countering current and future hazards in the military environment must be identified, developed and deployed. There is a need to increase speed and efficacy of interventions and treatments, and lower the rate of repatriation due to non-combat illness and injury from the theatre of operations, taking opportunities to enhance performance where feasible and ethical.

The Haldane-Spearman Consortium would be able to develop programmes of work in the areas of combat casualty care and treatment for injury arising from the use of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as required. Epidemiological and other techniques will be applied to capture necessary data to assist with the formulation of medical policy and ensure the fighting force is fit to perform at the required level and that performance will be sustained.

The Haldane-Spearman Consortium can provide knowledge of the incidence of training-related injuries and the hazards (disease and medical effects of environmental stressors) to personnel in the proposed theatre of operations, and diagnostic and therapeutic measures deployable at the point of need.

Rapid technological changes are advancing the effectiveness of diagnosis and treatment in Western medicine. The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) reviews preventative strategies and therapies proposed by the National Health Service (NHS) for cost effectiveness. Not all of these are suitable for military use; especially in the case of war fighting or even in a peacekeeping role in the poorer nations of the world, where local infrastructure will not support the high-technology diagnostic and therapeutic tools available to the NHS. Novel solutions are required to ensure that the DMS can continue to maintain care standards independent of the operating environment and in the face of the pace of change of medical technology, and the Haldane-Spearman Consortium is well placed to look into providing those solutions.