Civil Military Cooperation in Disasters

Through this discussion we will explore the role that the military play in supporting civilian actors in disaster response both domestically and internationally. We will be joined by a panel of experts including serving military officers involved in disaster responses, and together we will explore the challenges and opportunities that exist across these interactions.

Speaker Biographies

Squadron Leader David Mulvaney

David Mulvaney MBE has been a member of the PMRAFNS for 30 years. He is the current Defence Specialist Adviser for Infection Prevention and Control and has been heavily involved with the Military’s support to the Covid outbreak. This has included;  the opening of the London Nightingale Hospital; reviewing the Welsh Government Covid testing program; the assurance of the Military Mobile Covid testing concept, and the Midlands Covid vaccine roll-out. He is the lead for the RAF’s ATI (Air Transportable Isolator) capability, successfully recovering patients with EVD, Lassa Fever and CCHF. He was involved in the planning to the UK’s contribution to the West African EVD epidemic, has completed numerous Op TELIC (Iraq) and Op HERRICK (Afghanistan) tours, and most recently, deployed on 3 short tours to mentor Pakistan Army Medical Services in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Wing Commander John 'Pez' Coles

Wing Commander John ‘Pez’ Coles is the Royal Air Force Regional Liaison officer for the South West of the UK; he joined the RAF in 1989 and spent the majority of his career as aircrew on the Chinook helicopter. The Chinook’s history is well known and Pez was fortunate to be involved in many of varied operations the helicopter has been involved in from humanitarian work such as flood relief in Boscastle and Somerset and of course numerous trips to the dustier climes of Afghanistan and other countries in conflict. More recently as one of the RAF’s’ 10 UK Resilience LOs, he has been involved in the Todbrook Dam incident, repatriation of UK citizens from Wuhan that led straight into the MoD’s 18 month (and counting) of support to the Nation’s COVID response.  Any spare time was consumed by 10 months of planning, interspersed with 2 military plane crash responses, for the G7 Summit in St Ives, culminating last week in a frenetic week of support to the policing and security operation. Now back to ‘normal’ working, Pez is on 3 hours’ notice to respond to any requests for military assistance to the SW and Channel Islands LRFs but is planning to commence a MSc in Emergency Planning Resilience and Response to add academic rigour to his practical experience.