Military personnel are fighting-fit after intensive treatment for back and limb injuries at a new Regional Rehabilitation Unit at Whittington Barracks in Lichfield.

Some 50 personnel have been returned to full fitness in the past four months at the new unit, one of 15 across the UK and in Germany where Army, RAF and Royal Navy personnel are given treatment so as to return them to full fitness after injuries sustained on overseas operations, military exercises and on the sports field.

A mixed team of military and civilian physiotherapists and rehabilitation instructors – specially trained Army PTIs – is supported by a number of administrative staff.

Three week residential courses of intensive treatment, exercise, physiotherapy and physiological lectures are staged at Whittington Barracks, which is to be home in due course to the Joint Medical Command itself. Injured personnel based in Wales and the West Midlands would previously have travelled considerable distances for treatment at sites elsewhere in the country.

Lichfield-based Regional Rehabilitation Unit officer commanding Major Helen Buchanan said: “These personnel are closer to their military units and their families while on a course here, and they are able to concentrate on getting themselves back to full fitness for the three weeks that they are here rather than being distracted by other duties if back at base.”

The operational tempo of recent years – particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan – has led to military personnel with more serious injuries now attending the primary Armed Forces rehabilitation unit at Headley Court, Surrey after surgery at Selly Oak Hospital and those with lesser injuries attending the Regional Rehabilitation Units.

Sergeant Darren Hicklin of Stafford-based 22 Signal Regiment is being treated for a leg injury and said: “I am having in one concentrated period what it would take several months to achieve. I’ve nothing but praise for the team here.”