Origins Medical services in the British armed services date from the formation of the
Standing Regular Army after the
Restoration of
Charles II in 1660. Prior to this, from as early as the 13th century there are records of surgeons and physicians being appointed by the English army to attend in times of war; For much of the next two hundred years, army medical provision was mostly arranged on a
regimental basis, with each
battalion arranging its own hospital facilities and medical supplies. An element of oversight was provided by the appointment of three officials: a
Surgeon-general, a Physician-general and an
Apothecary-general.
Army Medical Board In 1793 an Army Medical Board was formed (consisting of the Surgeon-general, Physician-general and Inspector of Regimental Infirmaries), The Board set up five General (as opposed to regimental) Military Hospitals: four in the naval ports of
Chatham,
Deal,
Plymouth and
Gosport (
Portsmouth), and one (known as York Hospital) in
Chelsea. These hospitals received large numbers of sick and injured soldiers from the
French Revolutionary Wars (so much so that by 1799 additional General Military Hospitals were set up in
Yarmouth,
Harwich and
Colchester Barracks); the Board, however, was criticised, for both high expenditure and poor management. By the end of the century the Board had been disestablished, and most of the General Hospitals were closed or repurposed not long afterwards. By 1807 the only General Hospitals in operation were York Hospital (which was close to the
Royal Hospital, Chelsea, where invalided soldiers were routinely sent for
pension assessment) and the hospital at
Parkhurst (which was attached to the army's Invalid Depôt on the Isle of Wight, where soldiers invalided home from service overseas were initially sent).
Army Medical Department In 1810 the offices of Surgeon-general and Physician-general were abolished and a new Army Medical Department was established, overseen by a board chaired by a Director-General of the Medical Department. had served as principal medical officer under the
Duke of Wellington during the
Peninsular War. During that time he had introduced significant changes in the organisation of the army's medical services, placing them on a far more formal footing: together with
George Guthrie, he instituted the use of dedicated ambulance wagons to transport the wounded, and set up a series of temporary hospitals (formed of prefabricated huts brought over from Britain) to aid the evacuation of wounded soldiers from the front line. (the Invalid Depôt having relocated to Chatham from the Isle of Wight). A General Military Hospital was established on the site, which took on many of the functions (and most of the patients) of the old York Hospital. The influence of the Director-General grew, and from 1833 he was given sole charge of the department. That same year the (hitherto separate) Irish Medical Board was merged into the department, as was the
Ordnance Medical Department twenty years later.
The Department after Crimea In June 1855 a
Medical Staff Corps was established (in place of the Hospital Conveyance Corps, which had by then been merged into the
Land Transport Corps). It was formed of nine companies, overseen by a single officer, and had its headquarters at Fort Pitt. The Medical Staff Corps was set up to provide
orderlies and stretcher bearers (later it was renamed the Army Hospital Corps, but reverted to its original title in 1884). The officers known as purveyors, who were responsible for medical provisioning, were formed into a separate Purveyors' Department by a Royal Warrant of 1861; nine years later it was merged into the Control Department, and later became part of the
Army Service Corps. Netley functioned as a general hospital, but much of the army's medical work continued to be carried out at a regimental level. At the time a regiment of 1,044 men would have a medical staff of one surgeon and two assistants (with an additional assistant being appointed if the regiment was stationed abroad, so as to allow the senior assistant to remain at home with the
companies appointed to the
depot). The regimental basis of appointment for MOs continued until 1873, when a coordinated army medical service was set up. To join, a doctor needed to be qualified, single, and aged at least 21, and then undergo a further examination in physiology, surgery, medicine, zoology, botany and physical geography including meteorology, and also to satisfy various other requirements (including having dissected the whole body at least once and having attended 12 midwifery cases); the results were published in three classes by the Army Medical School. In 1884 the medical officers of the Army Medical Department were brought together with the
quartermasters who provided their supplies to form the
Army Medical Staff, which was given command of the Medical Staff Corps (which consisted entirely of
other ranks). Eventually, by authority of a royal warrant dated 25 June 1898,
officers and soldiers providing medical services were incorporated into a new body known as the
Royal Army Medical Corps; its first Colonel-in-Chief was
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. , 7 August 1915 During the
First World War, the corps reached its apogee both in size and experience. The two people in charge of the RAMC in the Great War were
Arthur Sloggett, the senior RAMC officer seconded to the IYH in Deelfontein who acquiesced in all Fripp's surprising innovations, and
Alfred Keogh, whom Fripp recommended to Brodrick as an RAMC man well-regarded when Registrar of No.3 General Hospital in
Cape Town. Its main base was for long the
Queen Alexandra Military Hospital at Millbank, London (now closed). It set up a network of military general hospitals around the United Kingdom and established clinics and hospitals in countries where there were British troops. Major-General Sir
William Macpherson of the RAMC wrote the official
Medical History of the War (HMSO 1922). Before the
Second World War, RAMC recruits were required to be at least tall, and could enlist up to 30 years of age. They initially enlisted for seven years with the colours, and a further five years with the reserve, or three years and nine years. They trained for six months at the RAMC Depot,
Queen Elizabeth Barracks, Church Crookham, before proceeding to specialist trade training. The RAMC Depot moved from Church Crookham to
Keogh Barracks in
Mytchett in 1964.
Amalgamation The
Secretary of State for Defence,
John Healey, announced on 15 October 2024 that the Government would amalgamate the
Royal Army Dental Corps and
Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps with the RAMC to form one unified corps, the
Royal Army Medical Service (RAMS), on 15 November 2024. ==RAMC General Hospitals in the First World War==