NHS staff stepped into the shoes of medics treating wounded soldiers on the battlefield when they took part in the annual National Health Service military challenge at Okehampton Training Camp recently.

The competitive event over two days, on September 8 and 9, involved 18 teams from all the major NHS trusts in the South West.

The teams took part in physically and mentally challenging activities provided by Reservists from the Royal Navy and Marines, Army and Royal Air Force.

South West-based 243 (Wessex) Field Hospital hosted the event to give medics a taste of what it takes to be a Reservist in the Army Medical Corps.

Captain Ken Caunter, operations support officer at 243 Wessex Field Hospital, said: ‘We, the Army Reserve Medical Services, rely almost 100 percent on the NHS and if I was to quantify that, in our recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, I would estimate 70% of the medical staff that were on the grounds through that operation were Reservists in the NHS serving with one of our units. That is how important that is. We have dedicated this event to NHS70.’

Teams of 12, ranging from hospital administrative staff to clinical nurses, competed in ten activities ranging from vehicle recovery to an obstacle course with a final fitness challenge and gun run on the second day.

Care Under Fire replicated how to treat a casualty under fire in a battlefield situation and gave civilian NHS staff a real insight to the difference between treating a casualty in a civilian hospital compared with the desperate situation they would be in on a battlefield. It involved live casualties played by amputee actors and asked the teams to deal with catastrophic bleeds in this challenging environment.

Taking part for the first time was University Hospital Plymouth Derriford.

The hospital’s human resources director Steven Keith said: ‘This is a great team building event, very realistic in terms of accommodation and food and mucking in with real reservists, and we are having a really good time.

‘We are a military hospital so we have a strong connection with the military and [it was] difficult not to take part before really given our relationship with the military over many years.’

Also taking part was North Devon District Hospital. The winners of the South West NHS Military Challenge 2018 was Salisbury District Hospital.

In the last five years, the field hospital has deployed personnel to Afghanistan, Somalia and Iraq as well as Sierra Leone where it treated ebola casualties. 

The unit has been involved in every conflict the UK has deployed on since WW1 where the whole unit was awarded the Croix de Guerre for humanitarian assistance under fire.