DR J GORDON PATERSON OBE

11 OCTOBER 2007

  Q238 Chairman: Can we have Dr Paterson, please, from the Board of the St John and Red Cross Defence Medical Welfare Service. Dr Paterson, may I begin by thanking you very much for coming to give evidence today and also for the memorandum from the Board of St John and Red Cross DMWS. First, can I ask you to tell us precisely what you do and who you are?

  Dr Paterson: I think if I can introduce myself and then the organisation which I have the honour to chair. I am a medical doctor, trained in Edinburgh. I was Director of Public Health in Aberdeen until I retired in 1999. Completely apart from that, I have had 40 years' involvement with the British Red Cross, initially as a Branch President, which is an honorary appointment. Immediately after retirement I served for three years as Chief Medical Officer to British Red Cross. The Organisation which I chair is an interesting one. It is a separate, independent charitable company. I think the members of the Committee may be interested in its origins. During the Second World War, volunteers, and I stress volunteers, in both St John and Red Cross were alerted to the fact that there was a need to supplement clinical services with welfare input and that voluntary initiative by the two voluntary aid societies led to the creation of a Service Hospital Welfare Service. For the avoidance of any doubt, this is not a group of well-intentioned ladies—mainly ladies—who did not get their hands dirty, these individuals deployed with British military hospitals throughout the world. I think then, as now, the staff were recognised by clinical staff as providing a very valuable service working alongside, and as effectively as, members of the clinical team. Very briefly, just to bring you up-to-date, in the late 1990s I should stress that the former Service Hospital Welfare Department was funded by a combination of grant-in-aid and the funds which had been accumulated during World War II held jointly by Red Cross and St John. The government indicated that they were not happy with grant-in-aid and would prefer the organisation to be a formal contractor to the MoD, so in 2001 we incorporated as what is now the Defence Medical Welfare Service. Although its parents, Red Cross and St John, are recognised in our title, we are not part of either organisation. The Prior of the Order of St John and the Chairman of British Red Cross are the two members of our company, but other than that we are an independent organisation. We were awarded one short-term contract. The contract we have at present was won in competition with two other organisations and runs until March 2009. I think rather than my going on at length, Chairman, I would be more than happy in the limited time available to clarify anything in the written submission or to answer questions.

  Q239  Mr Jones: I have read this and it is very useful background to how you came to be here but I am not actually clear what you do. It would be very helpful to me, and I am sure other members, if you could explain two things: one, what do you do in terms of this contract and, two, more importantly, what is it that you are asked to deliver that you are saying you are not delivering, because it is not quite clear?

  Dr Paterson: It is a question I am often asked, usually in social gatherings, and I use two graphic examples. A Serviceman is wounded in Iraq today, he may well be hospitalised, have no equipment other than the clothing that he comes in with because it is all back with his unit. Obviously doctors and nurses are preoccupied with saving the man's life and dealing with his injuries but there is a whole raft of things to be done in terms of literally providing some clean clothing, providing a DVD that he can watch in his hospital bed, supplementing the military communication channels back to home. In the most extreme situation, when a Service person is killed, our staff will accompany relatives from the airport to the mortuary to view their loved one. It is a combination of really quite soft welfare roles and some fairly hard and demanding emotional tasks.