Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many staffed and equipped field hospitals they have.

The Armed Forces operate 14 Field Hospitals: three Regular Army, ten Regionally Recruited Reserve Field Hospitals and one Nationally Recruited Reserve Field Hospital. These are shown below:

22 Field Hospital (Regular) - presently deployed in Sierra Leone

33 Field Hospital (Regular)

34 Field Hospital (Regular)

201 (Northern) Field Hospital (Reserve)

202 (Midlands) Field Hospital (Reserve)

203 (Welsh) Field Hospital (Reserve)

204 (North Irish) Field Hospital (Reserve)

205 (Scottish) Field Hospital (Reserve)

207 (Manchester) Field Hospital (Reserve)

208 (Merseyside) Field Hospital (Reserve)

212 (Yorkshire) Field Hospital (Reserve)

243 (Wessex) Field Hospital (Reserve)

256 (London) Field Hospital (Reserve)

306 Hospital Support Regiment (Reserve)

Regular Field Hospitals have a permanent cadre of staff who maintain the hospital and its equipment in barracks. During deployments and exercises they are augmented with Regular clinical staff from the Joint Medical Command. At the highest level of readiness, one of these units is able to deploy its lead elements at five days notice.

The Reserve Field Hospitals' role is to be ready to deploy for enduring operations with a minimum of 18 months notice. This allows sufficient time to prepare both the manpower and equipment for the deployment. Reserves can and do also volunteer as individuals to deploy on operations with Regular units at shorter notice.