King’s staff member wins prestigious RAF Reservist award
11 November 2021 - Ronan Ging, Senior Resuscitation Officer, won the award for Nursing and Leadership Services at the NHS and RAF
King’s Senior Resuscitation Officer Ronan Ging has been awarded the prestigious Lord Lieutenants’ award for Nursing and Leadership Services to both the NHS and RAF.
The Lord Lieutenants’ award recognises the outstanding work of the members of the Reserve Forces and Cadet Organisations.
Ronan developed a course in leadership, designed for intensive care nurses. The courses proved so popular that Health Education England (HEE) contacted Ronan to distribute the course across London, and later in hospitals throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
“I am honoured to have received the Meritorious Lord Lieutenants’ award for Nursing and Leadership Services to both the NHS and RAF,” Ronan said.
“During the first wave of COVID-19 I created a course in leadership and the course was specifically aimed at intensive care nurses. It started off as a small course and then HEE contacted me to run it across the whole of London.”
Ronan developed the course because the role of intensive care nurses changed during the first wave of COVID-19. He wanted to help the nurses develop their leadership skills as a number of nurses had taken on leadership roles. Ronan stepped in to provide training to be able to make their shift work and function.
Once the course was rolled out across London, Ronan was invited to present at a NATO conference in Estonia. After the conference, HEE contacted him again to see if they could run the course across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ronan agreed and then facilitated training at hospitals across the three nations.
His work with the RAF Reserve also contributed to his award win. Ronan created a resuscitation training course to help members of the armed forces develop their skills.
“At the RAF, I created a training centre for resuscitation within the Tactical Medical Wing at Brize Norton. Because of this and the NHS training course, I was awarded the Lord Lieutenants’ Meritorious award. Two nurses received it for the whole of Oxford and I was one of them.”
Ronan combines his role at King’s as an RAF Reservist. He serves as a Nursing Officer in the 4626 Squadron at Brize Norton RAF and holds the rank of Flight Leftenant.
“I started with the RAF six years ago and I wanted to get involved in more aeromedical medicine,” Ronan said. “I then got involved in aeromedical retrievals and you get trained up to the level where you can fly people back from conflict and non-conflict areas.
“You turn the back of the aircraft into a military hospital which becomes your ambulance and you transport patients from A to B.”
Speaking of his two roles, Ronan believes that working for both the NHS and the RAF will help him in his career.
“The two roles link to each other. You can take skills from one role and put it into the other very easily and vice versa.
“I wanted to be able to use my nursing skills outside the hospital and the RAF was the perfect place for it.”