© Crown copyright 2020
medical plans for deployed military forces where many of the casualties would come as the result of combat operations or their supporting activities. However, by keeping its functionality as generic as possible, we were rapidly able to adapt the input data to represent the spread of the virus through civilian populations and to model their treatment whilst the knowledge of that was also being developed. The range of analysis conducted during this period had significant and, in some cases, near immediate impact. For the initial analysis of the overseas bases, the analysis was requested on a Monday afternoon, the outputs fed into the senior decision makers meeting on the following Thursday morning, the medical team was tasked on the Saturday and they arrived with the additional equipment required to increase the Critical Care capacity within the Falkland Islands by the next Tuesday. The impact of the analysis for the Caribbean Overseas Territories was not quite so quick but still rapid – the delivery of the equipment and supplies required to significantly increase the medical capacity within the Turks & Caicos Islands took place within 2 weeks of the analysis reporting at the end of April 2020. In addition, RFA Argus (Figure 3) sailed to the Caribbean in preparation for the hurricane season and to support the response to the COVID-19 pandemic if required. She has a fully equipped 100-bed medical complex on board, which includes an emergency department and resuscitation facilities.
FIGURE 3 RFA ARGUS (A PRIMARY CASUALTY RECEIVING SHIP) IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA, SUMMER 2020
Major General R T H Jones, Standing Joint Force Commander noted that ‘. . . the modelling drove many of the key planning assumptions, providing clear targets and timelines for individual OT healthcare capacity and capability requirements (for example, ventilator numbers, staffing levels and PPE requirements). . . ’.
the modelling drove many of the key planning assumptions, providing clear targets and timelines for individual Overseas Territories’ healthcare capacity and capability requirements
Pete Bailey is a Principal Analyst within Dstl’s Exploration Division. He was the technical lead for the analysis in support of Op BROADSHARE, having
previously led the development of the ZEUS model. Struan Millar is a Senior Engineer within Dstl’s Platform Systems Division. He was seconded to SJFHQ during Op BROADSHARE, as a deployable operational analyst, to provide real-time decision support and enable effective communications back to the wider science and technology community. © Crown copyright (2021), Dstl. This material is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives. gov.uk/doc/open-governmentlicence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk
IMPACT | AUTUMN 2021
11
