An Ambulance and staff from RAF Benson have recently responded to a call from the John Radcliffe hospital to assist with the movement of Intensive Care patients to their new unit.
From Thursday 11 – Saturday 13 January 2007, Royal Air Force Benson teamed up with the Royal Air Force Critical Care Air Support Team (CCAST) to move Neurosurgical Intensive Care patients from the closing Radcliffe Infirmary to the new unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. The RAF CCAST permanently have a team of intensive care doctors, nurses and support staff on short notice to fly out to anywhere in the world to pick up military personnel who need intensive care support on their journey back to the UK. When they are not on-call for the CCAST many of their members work at the John Radcliffe Hospital on the Intensive Care Unit as honorary members of staff.
When the patients needed to be moved it made sense for the CCAST Team to get involved: “We were pleased to be able to help out the John Radcliffe staff who have welcomed their RAF colleagues, while at the same time affording our team the opportunity to work together. Much of what we do involves going out and working as a team in Iraq and Afghanistan so it has been beneficial to put this into practice back in the UK!” said Flight Lieutenant Deborah Bough, Junior Medical Officer at RAF Benson. “The John Radcliffe staff were impressed by our capability and efficiency – it was good to see all the hard work and training paying off”. Flt Lt Bough who is originally from Marcham near Abingdon, is usually a member of the RAF CCAST Team but is currently working as a GP at RAF Benson. She further added: “The medical centre at RAF Benson have been incredibly supportive. They lent us their ambulance and driver for the three days and freed me up to work with the team. It has been great to see what can be achieved when the RAF General Practice, hospital staff and the NHS work together”.