The Liberal Democrat party at its national conference in Glasgow this week [September 2013] has confirmed its support for organised representation of armed forces personnel.

The British Army Recovery Capability (ARC) is a fantastic capability but it would appear, only PARTIALLY works.  Firstly, demand outstrips the supply, and second, access to Personnel Recovery Units (PRUs) is a ‘Command Led Process’.

 

The British Army Recovery Capability (ARC) is a fantastic capability but it would appear, only PARTIALLY works.  Firstly, demand outstrips the supply, and second, access to Personnel Recovery Units (PRUs) is a ‘Command Led Process’. 

 

 

It is problematic firstly because the Unit Commanders’ priority is to prepare for Operations.  However, they must also triage their wounded, injured and sick (WIS) deciding which have the greatest need and therefore nomination to a PRU. They are then expected to effectively manage those that remain.  Second, the acceptance by the ARC Assignment Board of an injured Service man or woman to a PRU will be driven by PRU capacity. There are 154 beds in the 11 PRUs and 1000 places. So no matter what the need, if there are no spaces, management remains at Unit level. 

 

Which commander is prepared to stand up and tell those s/he leads that in the event of their injury, these are the odds they will be playing with, but not just them, their families too. The purpose of the ARC was to alleviate Unit Commanders of WIS management, for sound reasons, but this is only happening in part and the problems of the past systems (Y-List, SAM) remain and increase, for many WIS and their families.

A member has asked us if we can feature this song by Mr Peter Knight of Coonabarabran, Australia. We understand that Peter's father was a wartime navigator with Bomber Command RAF, based at RAF Wickenby in Lincolnshire. The song has been around for a while and is sung in this version by Grant Luhrs.