From quick blood-clotting kits and tourniquets to the more complex equipment keeping blood supplies at set temperatures, some of the best that the Armed Forces have in Afghanistan went on show at Defence Equipment and Support's base in Abbey Wood, Bristol.
Helping to demonstrate the equipment was Petty Officer Paddy McDonald, a naval medic based in Plymouth who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His most recent Operation HERRICK tour took place earlier this year and saw him working in the hospital management cell in Camp Bastion. He said:
"I am very happy with the quality of the kit we have now. All that we want we have, and it is sturdy and robust. It does the job.
"The equipment is saving the lives of our troops. If you are injured in Afghanistan you stand as good a chance of surviving now as if you were at the front door of an accident and emergency department.
"You have medics immediately on hand, helicopters will come to you with a surgical team on board and you will soon be back in Camp Bastion or Kandahar where the medics are second-to-none. And what they are doing is amazing.
"Injuries which five years ago we thought were not survivable, people can survive them now. You can be injured at 12 noon and by 12 the next day you can be back at Selly Oak Hospital."
PO McDonald was part of the team demonstrating some of the most modern kit available on the front line. Included in the inventory was the RCB 42P Thermostabiliser, a 30-litre container which allows temperature-sensitive medical material to be taken closer to the front line safely until needed.
Also on show was a £16,000 Apheresis Machine which separates vital platelets from donated blood - returning the blood to the donor - and produces an adult dose of platelets, vital in the clotting process, from a single donor in just under 45 minutes.
Along with medical supplies were items from an inventory of around 50,000 line items managed by the General Supplies team.
Everything from wood and metal to mousetraps and Bosun's whistles showed the variety of items the forces need:
"It's good for our senior officers to see what commodities we deal with," said inventory manager John Duckenfield.
"We deal with the mundane. It doesn't go bang, it doesn't go at Mach 2 and it's probably not very sexy; but it's all very useful.
"It is a good education for people in the range of products we provide to keep the Armed Forces going."
This article is taken from the August 2009 issue of desider - the magazine for Defence Equipment and Support.