Royal Army Medical Corps

 

Royal Army Medical Corps
Cap badge of the Royal Army Medical Corps
Active	1898 - present day
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Nickname	The Linseed Lancers;
Motto	In Arduis Fidelis
March	Quick: Here's a Health unto His Majesty (arr. J.A. Thornburrow) Slow: Her bright smile haunts me still (J Campbell)
Anniversaries	Corps Day (23 June)

The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace. Together with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps and Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps, the RAMC forms the British Army's essential Army Medical Services.

The RAMC does not carry a Regimental Colour or Queen's Colour, although it has a Regimental Flag. Nor does it have battle honours, as elements of the corps have been present in almost every single war the army has fought. Because it is not a fighting arm, under the Geneva Conventions, members of the RAMC may only use their weapons for self-defence. For this reason, there are two traditions that the RAMC perform when on parade:

• Officers do not draw their swords - instead they hold their scabbard with their left hand while saluting with their right.
• Other Ranks do not fix bayonets.

Unlike medical officers in some other countries, medical officers in the RAMC (and the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) do not use the "Dr" prefix, in parentheses or otherwise, but only their rank, although they may be addressed informally as "Doctor".

Insignia

The RAMC, like every other British regiment, has its own distinctive unit insignia.

• Dark blue beret, the default Army colour worn by units without distinctive coloured berets. The exception is members of 225 Scottish General Support Medical Regiment (previously Field Ambulance), who wear the traditional Scottish Tam O' Shanter headdress with Corps badge on tartan backing, and medical personnel attached to field units with distinctive coloured berets, who usually wear the beret of that unit (e.g. maroon for The Parachute Regiment and sky blue for the Army Air Corps).
• Cap badge depicting the Rod of Asclepius, surmounted by a crown, enclosed within a laurel wreath, with the regimental motto In Arduis Fidelis, translated as "Faithful in Adversity" in a scroll beneath. The cap badge is worn 1 inch above the left eye on the beret. The cap badge of the other ranks must also be backed by an oval patch of dull cherry-red coloured cloth sewn directly to the beret. Officers do not use the backing, but have a sewn-on cloth cap badge instead.
• Silver regimental collar pins (collar dogs), a miniature of the cap badge.
• Stable belt comprising equal horizontal bands of (from top to bottom) dull cherry, royal blue, and old gold, reflecting the old uniform worn in the 1900s (dull cherry and royal blue), the gold depicting the royal in the title.
• Silver belt buckle with engraved regimental badge

History

Medical services in the British military go as far back as the formation of the Standing Regular Army after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. This was the first time a career was provided for a Medical Officer (MO), known as the Regimental Surgeon, both in peacetime and in war. The Army was formed entirely on a regimental basis, and a MO with a Warrant Officer as his Assistant Surgeon was appointed to each regiment, which also provided a hospital. The MO was also for the first time concerned in the continuing health of his troops, and not limited to just battlefield medicine. This regimental basis of appointment for MOs continued until it was abolished in 1873.

In 1898, officers and soldiers providing medical services were incorporated into one body known by its present name, the Royal Army Medical Corps.

The RAMC began to develop during the Boer War, but it was during the First World War that it reached its apogee both in size and experience. During Britain's colonial days the RAMC had set up clinics and hospitals in countries where British troops could be found.

In modern times it has once again contracted and its main bases, the Queen Alexandra Hospital Millbank, and the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot, have now closed.

The military medical services are now very much tri-service, with the hospital facilities of Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy combined. The main hospital facility is now the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine in Birmingham, a joint military-NHS centre. The former Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in Gosport, near Portsmouth, became the tri-service Royal Hospital Haslar, however it was decommissioned in March 2007. The majority of injured service personnel are now treated in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, despite recent press coverage of poor conditions there.^[1] Derriford NHS hospital in Plymouth, North Allerton NHS hospital in Yorkshire, and Frimley Park Hospital (near Aldershot) also have military wards.

Colonels-in-chief

• FM HRH Arthur William Patrick Albert, 1st Duke of Connaught & Strathearn,KG, KT, GCB, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GCVO, GBE, VD, TD (1919–1942)
• HM Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (1942–2002)
• HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG, GCVO (2003–present)

Order of Precedence

Preceded by: Royal Logistic Corps

Order of Precedence

Succeeded by: Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

Successive changes in title

• Medical Staff Corps (1855–1857) (other ranks only)
• Army Hospital Corps (1857–1884) (other ranks only)
• Army Medical Department (1873–1898) (officers only)
• Medical Staff Corps (1884–1898) (other ranks only)
• Royal Army Medical Corps (1898–present)

Gallantry Awards

Since the Victoria Cross was instituted in 1856 there have been 29 Victoria Crosses and two bars awarded to army medical personnel. A bar, indicating a subsequent award of a second Victoria Cross, has only ever been awarded three times, two of them to medical officers. Twenty-three of these Victoria Crosses are on display in the Army Medical Services Museum. The corps also has one recipient of both the Victoria Cross and the Iron Cross. One officer was awarded the George Cross in the Second World War. A young female member of the corps, Private Michelle Norris, became the first woman to be awarded the Military Cross following her actions in Iraq on June 11 2006.^[2]

Surname	First Name/s	Awarded while serving with
ACKROYD	Harold	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Royal Berkshire Regiment
ALLEN	William Barnsley	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd Royal Field Artillery
BABTIE	William	Royal Army Medical Corps
BRADSHAW	William	90th Regiment (The Cameronians)
CHAVASSE	Noel Godfrey	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The King's (Liverpool Regiment) Bar: same
CREAN	Thomas Joseph	1st Imperial Light Horse (Natal)
DOUGLAS	Henry Edward Manning	Royal Army Medical Corps
FARMER	Joseph John	Army Hospital Corps
FOX-RUSSELL	John	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Royal Welch Fusiliers
GREEN	John Leslie	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Sherwood Foresters
HALE	Thomas Egerton	7th Regiment (The Royal Fusiliers)
HARDEN	Henry Eric	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd 45 Royal Marine Commando
HARTLEY	Edmund Barron	Cape Mounted Riflemen, SA Forces
HOME	Anthony Dickson	90th Perthshire Light Infantry
INKSON	Edgar Thomas	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
JEE	Joseph	78th Regiment (The Seaforth Highlanders)
LE QUESNE	Ferdinand Simeon	Medical Staff Corps
LLOYD	Owen Edward Pennefather	Army Medical Department
MALING	George Allen	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd The Rifle Brigade
MANLEY	William George Nicholas	Royal Regiment of Artillery Awarded Iron Cross 1870
MARTIN-LEAKE	Arthur	VC : South African Constabulary Bar : Royal Army Medical Corps
MOUAT	James	6th Dragoons (Inniskilling)
NICKERSON	William Henry Snyder	Royal Army Medical Corps
RANKEN	Harry Sherwood	Royal Army Medical Corps att'd King's Royal Rifle Corps
REYNOLDS	James Henry	Army Medical Department
SINTON	John Alexander	Indian Medical Service
SYLVESTER	William Henry Thomas	23rd Regiment (The Royal Welch Fusiliers)

Trades/Careers In The 21st century

RAMC Officer Careers:

• Doctor (Medical Officer)
• Pharmacist
• Physiotherapist
• Medical Support Officer

RAMC Soldier Trades:

• Clinical Physiologist
• Combat Medical Technician
• Operating Department Practitioner
• Pharmacy Technician
• Environmental Health Technician
• Laboratory Technician
• Radiographer

See also

• Structure of the British Army: The Services
• Combat medic

References

External links

• Royal Army Medical Corps website
• Army Medical Services Museum Webpage

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