Afghanistan: Peacekeeping Operations
Defence
Menzies Campbell (North East Fife, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many service personnel have been deployed within field hospitals during Operation Herrick since April 2009; and how many and what proportion were reservist medical personnel.
Bob Ainsworth (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Coventry North East, Labour)
The numbers of service personnel deployed to field hospitals is shown in the following table:
| Operation Herrick | Total personnel | of which r eservists | as a percentage |
| April to October 2009 | 136 | 109 | 80 |
| October 2009 to April 2010 | 283, | 151 | 53 |
It should be noted that reservists deploy for periods of three months rather than six months for regular armed forces personnel. As such, the reservists figures look artificially high because they reflect two three-month deployments rather than one six-month deployment.