Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service

HQ MDHU Portsmouth

QAH Approximately 1930

Headquarters MDHU Portsmouth is situated within Albert House in what was up until recently a quiet corner of the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham. This new Headquarters (HQ) officially became operational on 1 April 2006, a year ahead of the scheduled closure of the Royal Hospital Haslar on 31 Mar 07.

Queen Alexandra Hospital was originally a military hospital, built in 1904 to treat injured troops from Normandy. Initially there were four ward blocks built, but more beds were desperately needed as a result of World War I, so hutted wards were used to accommodate nearly 500 beds. As with many makeshift hospitals from the era, the huts stayed in place for several years after the war.

The demilitarisation of the hospital began in 1926 when it was handed to the Ministry of Pensions, to care for disabled ex-servicemen. Then in January 1942, following a bombing raid on the Royal Portsmouth Hospital, the first civilian patients were admitted, with more being transferred when the Royal fell victim to a land mine. With all these war casualties continuing to arrive, including those from the D Day landings, the number of beds had to be increased again to 640.

Following the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948, all but 100 of the 640 beds were transferred to the NHS in 1951, with the remainder reserved for ex-servicemen. Then in the 1960’s the existing builings of Queen Alexandra Hospital were upgraded and became a District General Hospital.

The hospital site of Queen Alexandra’s has been undergoing some major refurbishments with the contractors demolishing most of the old buildings. This building site now surrounds HQ on three sides and with a junior school on the fourth side, and as you can imagine the peace and quiet is presently suspended. Phase one is now completed and on time, so hopefully the noise levels will slowly reduce over the coming months.

The PFI at both Selly Oak and Portsmouth were initially delayed in commencement, which in turn has led to the RH Haslar site remaining until Dec 09, when it is anticipated that all military personnel and departments will have moved into their new respective departments at RCDM and QAH. On completion the QAH hospital will be able to provide; 1072 inpatient beds, 96 medical and surgical beds, 116 day case beds and 20 main operating theatres, along with a whole host of other facilities which will create a modern state of the art hospital.

There are presently 360 tri-service personnel of which 50 are PMRAFNS, this comprises of 2 Officers, 1 WO, 9 SNCO’s and 38 OR’s. These personnel work across 3 largely civilian sites in and around Portsmouth, including St Mary’s and QA hospitals along with the RH Haslar. This ensures that our nurses are employed in all the acute sectors of medicine such as Emergency Medicine, Intensive care, Theatres and the many Speciality wards such as Surgery, Orthopaedics and Medicine.

With such a large patient catchment area all departments are extremely busy, and therefore a wide variety of experience is gained by personnel who are able to rapidly develop their competencies required for specialist training and Operational deployments.

Albert house (named after Queen Victoria’s consort Prince Albert) has also been playing its’ part in the maintenance of the local environment during all the major building work by having one of a number of heated bat boxes located on the Headquarters building. These are for the Pipistrelle bats, and the heated box is designed for a family roost. Another 30 roosting boxes have been distributed around the hospital site for ‘homeless bats’ that all require relocation during the demolition work. Hopefully the new high tech accommodation will provide a safe and warm home, however so far our new neighbours have kept themselves to themselves.

Although the development and drawdown of the unit continues with frequent changes occurring, all the personnel continue to make the most of the opportunities available be it professional, clinical, military or sporting activities and the MDHU Portsmouth continues to go from strength to strength.

Jennifer Daw

Cpl