Briton's injured troops 'left in agony' for up to 7 hours

Wounded troops wait too long for helicopter evacuation because of a lack of aircraft and cumbersome command procedures, according to Lieutenant Colonel Paul Parker, an experienced combat surgeon who recently served with UK forces in Afghanistan.

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He said moving casualties to field hospitals was "excessively slow" with injured troops waiting an average seven hours before receiving hospital treatment during fierce fighting last summer.

He contrasted that with an average of 25 minutes for U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam 40 years ago, and criticised the lack of a dedicated fleet of combat medevac helicopters to support today's operations.

The strong criticisms, contained in an article for the Royal Army Medical Corps Journal, reignited the debate over the resources available to British forces fighting Taliban militias in southern Afghanistan, and in particular the treatment of wounded soldiers.

The Ministry of Defence strongly disputed the claims last night, insisting medical care for combat troops was "first class", and that comparisons with Vietnam were misleading.

Britain has almost 7,500 troops in Afghanistan supported by a fleet of just 13 support helicopters - eight Chinook and five smaller Lynx aircraft - along with eight Apache attack helicopters.

Although the MOD insists commanders on the ground have enough aircraft, serving soldiers have repeatedly complained of examples where helicopters have been unavailable, putting UK forces in greater danger.

In his article Lt Col Parker criticised slow response times for flying wounded soldiers from the frontline to the main field hospital at Camp Bastion in central Helmand, claiming there were "too many layers of command" to go through before aircraft were dispatched.

He wrote: "In Vietnam, wounded soldiers arrived in hospital within 25 minutes. In Iraq in 2005 that figure is 110 minutes. On Operation Herrick IV [Afghanistan in 2006] the average pre-hospital time was seven hours.

"A Casevac (casualty evacuation) request has to go through too many layers of command. There seems little point in providing high technology in-hospital care when our patients still take several hours to travel a few miles to us.

"We use support or anti-tank helicopters that are re-roled on an ad hoc basis for the critical care and transport of our sickest patients.

"We still do not have a dedicated all-weather military helicopter evacuation fleet. Should we not be asking why?

"We have gone backwards in terms of our evacuation time-lines."

Lt Col Paul Parker, 45, a parachute-trained medic who has served on operations around the world, also claimed hospitals risked running out of blood and oxygen if faced with a large influx of wounded casualties.

He revealed that Camp Bastion had only just received a CT scanner to check for brain injuries, more than a year after combat operations began, and said the medical laboratory had to close between 11.30am and 3.30pm because the air-conditioning cannot keep the room cool enough.

Last year Tony Blair pledged that commanders in Afghanistan could have whatever equipment they needed to achieve their mission, saying: "Whatever package they want, we will do."

In one incident in January British troops bravely clung to the outside of two Apache gunships to try to rescue a fallen comrade after a failed assault on a Taliban stronghold.

The MOD held up the episode as an example of gallantry and ingenuity, but critics questioned why no support helicopter was assigned when a major ground assault had been ordered.

Last night the MOD insisted commanders on the ground did not order combat assaults without adequate medical back-up available.

An Army spokesman said methods had changed radically in the 40 years since the Vietnam War.

He said: "Instead of just loading casualties onto helicopters and rushing them to the rear we now have highly qualified medics on the frontline - ready to give life-saving treatment.

"We can dispatch surgeons and anaesthetists to treat them on the helicopter, so they're getting high-quality treatment long before they reach the field hospital."

He disputed claims that blood and oxygen could run out, saying: "We have never run at our field hospitals. There is a plan to get extra blood supplies from donors on the camp, and we've never had to use it."

The spokesman added: "Lt Col Parker is entitled to his opinion, but the underlying question is whether our troops who get injured are getting excellent medical care. They are."

The latest British soldier to be killed in Iraq was named last night as Lance Corporal James Cartwright, 21, from the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment. He was engaged to be married, and came from London.

L Cpl Cartwright was driving a Warrior armoured fighting vehicle guarding a supply convoy when it slipped off a bridge into a roadside canal south of Basra, and overturned.

Colleagues struggled to rescue him from the vehicle and revive him, but he was later declared dead.

He was due to leave the Army on his return to Britain, and planned to retrain as a firefighter. Colleagues paid tribute to him yesterday as a "consummate professional."