AMedP-1.8 skills matrix for military medical treatment facilities

What it is

AMedP-1.8, the NATO Allied Medical Publication carrying the skills matrix, is one of three publications that implement STANAG 2560, the agreement recording nations' commitment to a common way of evaluating NATO medical treatment facilities. AMedP-1.6 is the evaluation manual, AMedP-1.7 is the capability matrix, and AMedP-1.8 is the skills matrix: a module-by-module list of the skills a Medical Evaluation Team draws on when it examines a deployed or deployable medical capability. The current edition, Edition A Version 2, was promulgated on 28 May 2026 and supersedes Version 1, which nations are told to destroy under their own document-destruction procedure.

A reference for evaluators, not a training syllabus

The document is explicit about its own role. It states that AMedP-1.8 "lists a set of skills from which the SMEs" - the subject-matter experts on a Medical Evaluation Team - "will select the appropriate skills necessary to comply with the assigned task for each medical module", and that the selected skills "should be used as template to develop supporting and additional questions in order to evaluate a module in depth". So the matrix supplies the material an evaluator builds questions from; it is not itself a syllabus, a competence framework a training provider works through item by item, or a checklist an inspector ticks off line by line. This page sets out what the publication is for and who uses it; it does not reproduce the matrix. AMedP-1.8 sets out skills by role and level, module by module, and an evaluator or a training provider needs the document itself for that detail.

Forty-six medical modules

The matrix runs to 46 modules, from command, control, communication, computers and information through hospital management, casualty evacuation and staging, primary healthcare, a run of clinical specialisms, diagnostic and laboratory support, medical supply functions, and administrative modules including mortuary and outbreak investigation. Each module's entry is organised the same way: a set of capabilities, and the skill set behind each one. None of that detail belongs on a page like this; the point of the structure is that a Medical Evaluation Team, and whoever prepares personnel for its visit, work from the same 46-module reference.

Who uses it, and where it binds

AMedP-1.8 addresses national armed forces and the Medical Evaluation Teams, made up of subject-matter experts, that assess a medical module against it. It is not addressed directly to a civilian contractor, though a nation that contracts a private training or medical provider to staff or deliver a Role-level capability passes the same expectation down through that contract. It binds the way a Standardization Agreement binds: nations agree to use it, that agreement is recorded in STANAG 2560, and a nation can ratify with reservations. The document's own Record of Specific Reservations shows this in practice - several nations record that they will use it only up to a stated Role level, or exclude particular capabilities such as CBRN response, from the scope they evaluate.

What it links to, and what it does not decide alone

The document points outward twice. Module personnel should, where applicable, be able to respond to major incident or mass-casualty contingencies as covered in STANAG 2879 and AMedP-1.10; and one dental skill item separately invokes STANAG 2464 for forensic dental identification procedure. Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) skills across the matrix are scoped explicitly: the document states they apply "only applicable when required according to the mission related assessed CBRN risks", not as a standing requirement carried by every module regardless of the mission.

How you are evaluated

Nothing in AMedP-1.8 establishes a certification scheme, and no accredited body certifies anything under it. Assessment is a Medical Evaluation Team examining an organisational capability - a medical module, at a given Role level - using skills drawn from this matrix to frame its questions. The personnel involved hold competence; the module is what gets assessed against a Role level, and neither is a certificate an organisation could hold. What an evaluator actually checks for, and how the process runs, sits in the companion evaluation manual, AMedP-1.6, and the capability matrix, AMedP-1.7.

Standards it references

• AMedP-1.6Background
• AMedP-1.7Background
• STANAG 2879Background
• AMedP-1.10Background
• STANAG 2464Background