Tactical Medical Wing at 30: Brize Norton unit behind RAF's global patient evacuation work
The RAF's Tactical Medical Wing has marked its 30th anniversary at RAF Brize Norton after a year in which it supported more than 90 operations and exercises and carried out more than 1,500 aeromedical evacuation missions.
TMW is the operational hub for RAF Medical Services and deals with everything from a virus outbreak to natural disaster.
Its job is to train, equip and deploy RAF Medical Services personnel for operations and exercises internationally, while also providing worldwide aeromedical evacuation for defence.
Three jobs, one unit
Made up of five squadrons and one flight, the wing is available to defence 24/7. Its work ranges from moving patients by air to pushing medical teams and treatment capability forward when a crisis or operation demands it.
Wing Commander Rosie Barrow, the Officer Commanding Operations Squadron, said: "We've got three core roles as a wing. The first one of those is to deliver that evacuation, so moving patients from anywhere in the world, right from points of injury all the way back."
That can mean anything from routine transfers to urgent cases that need quick movement and specialist care in the air.
Corporal Morgan, a flight nurse on Aeromed Squadron, said: "It could be absolutely anything. So it can be a range from breaks or lower limb injuries to people needing surgery the next day.
"So we have to get them back on a fairly quick timeline. I've seen broken legs. I've seen surgical patients. I've seen cardiac patients.
"It could be absolutely anything."
Wg Cdr Barrow said the other roles were supporting medical capability in crisis and disaster operations, providing equipment and training needed to get teams out of the door at short notice.
More than aeromedical evacuation
But TMW is not only about bringing people back. The unit does far more than receive casualties onto an aircraft.
Wg Cdr Barrow said the wing's second role is "supporting that medical capability forward", including responding to "crisis disaster operations, wherever it is that they happen".
That means the unit can also help push treatment capability out to where it is needed, with fielded medical facilities able to support activity on operations and during emergencies.
In February 2023, medical specialists from TMW and 16 Medical Regiment deployed to Turkey on an RAF C-130J Hercules to help treat people critically injured in the earthquake.
Behind the deployment
The third part of the job is what makes the first two possible.
"The third is about generating, deploying and enabling that activity," Wg Cdr Barrow explained
"So we have the engineers, we have the logisticians, the force protection experts who help us prepare the team to go out the door with the training guys on top of that."
During Exercise Mobility Guardian 23, the Brize Norton-based wing took part in one of the largest aeromedical evacuation exercises for many years, deploying to Japan and working with personnel from Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand and the United States.
On Voyager, TMW personnel trained to keep simulated casualties stable in flight, including stretcher patients and patients inside the aircraft.
Meanwhile, closer to home during the coronavirus pandemic, wing personnel also deployed in support of the Nightingale hospitals.
Alongside the clinicians are the engineers, logisticians, trainers and force protection specialists preparing people and equipment to move.
Thirty years after it was formed, Tactical Medical Wing remains on call around the clock at Brize Norton, ready to move patients, support medical teams forward and deploy when needed.
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