This week marks 30 years of lifesaving medical aid.
On 4 May, 30 years ago, UK-Med came into being as the successor of SMART – the South Manchester Accident Rescue Team. What started as a small team of NHS doctors and nurses supporting the ambulance service around Manchester evolved to become an international humanitarian charity.
The goal – to provide lifesaving care in emergencies – remained the same, but the scope became global.
To celebrate 30 years of saving lives, follow UK-Med’s journey and explore how we have grown to become a global organisation with a roster of more than 1,000 medics and humanitarians on call to respond to crises and disasters around the world.
1987
SMART is founded
1988
SMART’s first international aid response
1994
UK-Med is born
2010
The EMT initiative begins
2020
COVID-19: UK-Med responds at home and abroad
2022
Ukraine: UK-Med’s first country programme
2024
Saving lives in Gaza
Tony Redmond and his team of volunteer clinicians.
SMART was founded by Tony Redmond, a doctor in emergency medicine. While working in busy Manchester hospitals, he recognised the need for a team of expert medics who could be called on at rapid notice to provide lifesaving care in emergencies.
With paramedic training in its infancy, there was limited support to the ambulance service for critically ill or injured patients. But with SMART’s team of emergency consultants and nurses, many lives that could have been lost were saved.
Armenia, 1988: The aftermath of the Spitak earthquake.
Soon after SMART was formed, the team had their first taste of international aid work when they deployed to Armenia in 1988 after a devastating earthquake killed more than 60,000 people.
“[The Soviet government] asked for international help, so me and some colleagues from the prehospital care team we had established in Manchester felt compelled to offer our help, which was accepted.” Tony Redmond recalled.
Sarajevo, 1992: Tony, an interpreter and UNHCR staff.
The Armenia earthquake response paved the way for what would become UK-Med, which came into existence as the successor of SMART in 1994. One year later, UK-Med became a registered charity.
UK-Med took on a global character; its nascent team of medics ready to respond overseas at a moment’s notice. This ethos has stayed with us ever since, and remains the central mission behind every deployment we undertake today.
The EMT system was born out of the Haiti aid response.
Following the Haiti earthquake that claimed 200,000 lives, after which UK-Med deployed a team of medics, the World Health Organization recognised the need for a coordinated network of qualified medical teams, underpinned by minimum standards and trained to provide immediate support during an emergency.
As a result, the Emergency Medical Team (EMT) initiative was born. UK-Med’s founder, Tony Redmond, played a key role in helping to establish the standards for EMTs to meet.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw UK-Med respond across the globe.
As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, UK-Med responded in 21 countries, including the UK, where our medics were involved in the construction of a temporary NHS Nightingale Hospital in Manchester.
Working alongside the World Health Organization and local health staff abroad, UK-Med trained thousands of health workers and supported patient care in countries hard hit by the pandemic.
We have deployed more than 200 NHS and international medics to Ukraine since 2022.
Immediately after Russia’s full-scale invasion on 24 February 2022, UK-Med sent a small team to Eastern Ukraine. From there, the response grew to become our first long-term country programme which now employs more than 50 staff, most of them Ukrainian.
We’ve delivered more than 20,000 medical consultations in Ukraine since April 2022, many of them in areas close to the front line. We’ve also provided 9,333 mental health consultations and have conducted 515 surgeries.
UK-Med has been responding in Gaza since January 2024.
Following the devastating surge in violence following the October 7 attack and the Israeli military’s offensive in Gaza, tens of thousands of people have been killed, wounded, or displaced.
UK-Med is the only British NGO to construct a field hospital in Gaza, which is currently seeing hundreds of patients per day. Alongside our mobile clinics, and surgical support to local hospitals, we have treated more than 14,000 ill and injured people in Gaza.
