Operational mortality of UK service personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan: a one year analysis 2006-7.

Email: [email protected] Introduction Details of all UK military deaths on operations are collected from clinical notes, post mortem reports and incident reports and are held on the UK Joint Theatre Trauma Registry, maintained by the Academic Department of Military Emergency Medicine (ADMEM) at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM). Analysis of these deaths is used to determine emerging injury patterns, to monitor clinical effectiveness, and to inform personal and vehicular protective systems. This paper evaluates UK Service deaths in the first year of operations in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, comparing hostile action wounding mechanisms, patterns, salvageability and preventability with UK Service deaths in Iraq for the same period.