Jim30 said:
Binning the MSA's - or how to scrap a branch and cull numbers without admitting it.
the most scandalous act of mistreatment from DNRES that I've seen - heads should have rolled over that one.
To be fair, it wasn't the entire branch - it was "just" those MSAs whose civilian occupation was not in healthcare (IIRC this was about half of the branch - the QARRNS(R) & MO's are oten not particularly high profile due to the vagaries of NHS shift patterns). The given reason was that training them (and, as importantly, keeping them current) was not practical in 12 days ORT/12 days SA - the option of training them as healthcare assistants was considered, however in order to have a recognised qualification, they would have needed to do something like a months' NHS work a year, before any RNR training. It is DMS policy to provide as near-NHS standards of care as is possible (whether this is a good thing is another debate entirely) and it was felt that effectively unqualified/untrained medical personnel would be at odds with this intention (I note the TA field hospitals are going through a similar process of reducing numbers)
I agree that the way that some of the ratings were treated was, at best, shameful; however this in part seemed to be as a result of the (frequently ill-disguised) contempt the branch appeared to be held in by the RN MSO responsible for it in Portsmouth - fortunately there has been a recent regime change & things there seem to be improving.