AAMedP-1.12 medical training and equipment for search and rescue

What it is

What AAMedP-1.12 covers

AAMedP-1.12 is NATO's Allied Aeromedical Publication for medical training and equipment used in Search and Rescue (SAR) and Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) missions. It sets the scope of medical training a nation gives to personnel supporting these missions, and the minimum scale of medical equipment and drugs a SAR or CSAR aircraft carries, so that both are standardised across participating NATO nations. Edition B, Version 1 was promulgated in February 2024, superseding Edition A, Version 1.

This is doctrine addressed to a nation's own military medical service, not to a supplier. Nowhere does the document name a manufacturer, contractor or notified body, and it sets no product, software or contract requirement. A defence or cyber vendor reading this page will not find an obligation here: the document governs how a nation trains and equips its own SAR/CSAR personnel, not what a company builds, supplies or certifies.

Training: a required basic syllabus, an optional extended one

The document's Annex A sets out the training. Its baseline is the minimum competence for basic medical care, including basic life support, needed before and during flight up to the point a casualty is handed over to a higher echelon of care. A basic syllabus applies across participating nations, taught as a set of topics spanning flight physiology, first aid and basic life support, emergency treatment of trauma and cardiac and respiratory emergencies, injury management, and recognition of life extinct. AAMedP-1.12 names which topics are to be taught; it is not a clinical training manual, and this page does not reproduce the training content itself.

Beyond that baseline, nations may train personnel with extended skill sets, at their own discretion, to provide care to Advanced Life Support standards, with a matching extended training and equipment inventory. The extended syllabus covers topics such as obstetric emergencies, mass-casualty handling and triage (in accordance with STANAG 2879 and AMedP-1.10), advanced resuscitation, and care within a CBRN environment, all taught "at the Nation's discretion." A separate non-medical syllabus covers survival training matched to the operating environment, plus further training such as escape, evasion and land survival for personnel assigned to CSAR duties.

Whichever level a nation trains to, the document asks it to keep personnel competent: continuation training, periodic re-validation and, where necessary, re-certification, all measured against the nation's own professional guidelines rather than a NATO scheme.

Equipment: a minimum scale, not a design specification

Annex B sets a minimum scale of medical equipment and drugs to be carried, ready for use, for patient transport by NATO military SAR or CSAR aircraft, so that a common minimum supports inter-allied interoperability. Individual item quantities depend on the mission and the aircraft's casualty-carrying capacity, and equipment or drugs the document marks as "extended role" are added to the minimum list at each nation's own discretion, matched to the training and expertise of the personnel who will use them.

The scale is organised under nine headings: airway management, ventilation support, circulation support, assessment and monitoring, fracture stabilisation, analgesia, additional equipment, Advanced Life Support and emergency drugs, and patient transport. AAMedP-1.12 lists specific items and drugs under each heading; this page does not reproduce that list. It is a scale for a military medical service to hold and issue against, not equipment guidance for a reader here to act on.

Reservations recorded at promulgation

Five nations recorded specific reservations against this edition, which is normal for a NATO agreement rather than a defect in it. Canada does not treat all extended-role medications as carried by its SAR/CSAR personnel. France reserves the right to fly certain missions on aircraft not configured for aeromedical evacuation, does not use the infusion warmer, limits survival training to specific personnel, and treats obstetrics and paediatrics as outside this training's scope. Hungary has no CSAR service and cannot provide emergency medical care in a CBRN environment. Lithuania does not intend to perform CSAR operations. Montenegro cannot conduct full medical training for its SAR personnel, who are qualified in Combat Life Saver skills and first aid rather than as medical personnel. Each reservation changes what that nation's own service trains and carries; it does not change the document.

How it binds, and where it sits in NATO's doctrine hierarchy

AAMedP-1.12 binds through STANAG 3745, the NATO agreement recording nations' commitment to use this publication: the letter of promulgation states that "the agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 3745." Edition B, Version 1 took effect on a nation's receipt of it, not on a contract or tender date, and was approved by the nations sitting on NATO's Military Committee Air Standardization Board (MCASB).

How you are evaluated

AAMedP-1.12 describes no organisational certification scheme, and no accreditation or notified-body process appears in it. What it describes is the evaluation of the individual: nations are to keep personnel "competent and confident to practice to the level of training provided," through continuation training, periodic re-validation and, if necessary, re-certification, all run against each nation's own professional guidelines. That is a personal clinical qualification, held by the person, not a certificate an organisation can hold, and nothing in the document changes that.

Standards it references

• [STANAG 3745](/standards/stanag-3745) - the NATO agreement recording nations'

commitment to use this publication, and the cover that gives it force.

• [STANAG 2879](/standards/stanag-2879) and [AMedP-1.10](/standards/amedp-1-10) -

cited together in the extended, discretionary training syllabus for the mass-casualty handling and triage technique a nation may choose to teach.

Both citations sit inside an optional syllabus item rather than a clause AAMedP-1.12 binds every nation to; where a nation does teach that topic, this is the technique it follows.

Standards it references

• STANAG 2879Background
• AMedP-1.10Background