ARRC Imjin Magazine Winter 25 | Page 25

Maj David Watts

We here at 2nd Medical Group are absolutely delighted to be a part of the ARRC family and look forward to meeting all of you in person as we work together on a more regular basis here on in.

It would be remiss of us not to introduce who we are! 2nd Medical Group is the group of Regular and Reserve Units responsible for providing medical care from routine GP led Primary Healthcare up to and including complex surgery. We do this via 2 regular Units, 21 Multi-role Medical Regiment in Strensall and 22 Multi-role Medical Regiment in Chester, alongside 9 Reserve Multi-role Medical Units whom are geographically aligned to UK NHS trusts and 3 Nationally Recruited Specialist Medical Support Units whom share a HQ with 2nd Medical Group in near York.

Like every team represented in this magazine, we have had a busy 6 months, which started with the annual Army Medical Services Tactical Training Exercise( AMSTTE), which occurred in Otterburn in early June.

Medical Regiment, based in the Southeast of England.

“ It is gruelling,” admitted Lieutenant Colonel Gizella Simpson-Hayes, the Commanding Officer of 254 Multi-Role Medical Regiment,“ It starts at 17:00 and ends at 05:00. They cover over 25km on foot – if they don’ t get lost! The terrain is hilly. The weather is unpredictable.

“ But the serious element is teaching our medical staff to fight, to defend themselves so they can survive to treat and care for our soldiers.”

In the end, it was defending champions the Irish Defence Force who became this year’ s winners – with Northern Ireland reserve unit, 210 Multi-role Medical Regiment, coming in second, in 2026 it would be wonderful to have entries from the wider ARRC family.

One of the more popular and rewarding activities that we took part in this year was HARAKA SERPENT. An outreach medical exercise during which a military medical team work with a medical charity in Kenya to deliver outreach medicine to the Kenyan community.

As well as the women’ s health care specialists, A & E nurses and others provided a more general primary health care service. The local community arrived in large numbers wherever the clinics were set up.

In the words of the Regimental 2IC Major Matthews“ This exercise highlights the reason why many of our Reservists joined the military and that is to travel, to experience different cultures and to be challenged clinically as well as in their supporting and leadership roles in an environment that is unique to Africa.”

For this competition more than 80 medics from regular and reserve forces from all over the world came together in Northumberland to battle it out for the coveted title of Best Military Medical Team.

They tabbed through the night carrying 15kg as well as their rifles, completing a scenario challenge every 45 minutes.

The contest has been running for more than 20 years and used to be almost entirely focused on medical skills but in preparation for fitting in with the ARRC family, this year the medics were tested on both their soldiering skills as well as their lifesaving medical ones.

Each year a different 2nd Medical Group Unit leads on the competition and this year it was 254 Multi-role

In July Birmingham based 202 Multi-role Medical Regiment carried out this duty and delivered medical care to isolated tribal communities in Kenya’ s Laikipia and Samburu counties.

202 Multi-role Medical Regiment worked with the charity‘ Beyond Zero’ established by the former First Lady of Kenya, Margaret Kenyatta. The charity aims to reduce preventable maternal and child deaths and cut mother to child transmission of HIV throughout the country.

As this article is being written, we have 2nd Medical Group personnel deployed with ARRC for the first time on AVENGER TRIAD, we hope that our team has made a positive first impression and we look forward to updating you in 6 months’ time of many activities that have seen us truly become part of the team!