In the final episode of this series we meet Richard Moyes who is the General Manager of Outpatients CSU at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust but what a lot of people don't know about him is that he used to be a fighter Pilot in the RAF.

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Hereos Unmasked is an Under The Mast audio production

Hello, and welcome to Heroes Unmasked, staff stories from Leeds

teaching hospitals, NHS trust with me, Caroline Verdon here's a question for you.

What do world class Marjong players and professional footballers have

to do with Leeds teaching hospitals.

Answer.

They all work for the hospitals.

This series goes behind the scenes to meet directors, doctors, support staff,

and everyone in between to find out who the people behind the masks really are.

Hello, and welcome pull up a chair.

Uh, this week, my guest is Richard Moyes.

Now Richard is the general manager of outpatient CSU across the Leeds

teaching hospitals, NHS trust.

But what a lot of people don't know about him is that he used to

be a fighter pilot within the RAF.

Um, Richard, so many questions for you and we're gonna start right

at the beginning if that's okay.

Um, what made you decide to sign up and join the RAF in the first place?

Um, so I went through university and, and didn't

really know what I wanted to do.

Um, I did mechanical engineering for a degree.

Uh, down in London, um, and ultimately actually got offered a job by Ford

and, and went down to Dham and had to wander around their plans.

And, and it was just a bit mundane actually, to be fair.

And I wanted something that involved the great outdoors

and something with a bit of.

Um, bit of Piza really.

Um, and that kind of led me to the, to the military and, and actually I wanted

to join the search and rescue, uh, as in search and rescue helicopters.

That, that was my big thing.

I was a big mountain here before joining the, um, the military,

um, that still am actually to a, to a certain degree, although.

Either I'm getting older or the mountains are getting steeper one or

the two , but, um, I mean, it, it was really that kind of yellow helicopter

that kind of attracted me into the, into the military in the first place.

And then as I went through flying training, um, those who kind

of tend came top of the class were streamed into fast jets.

And, and those that can kind of came in the middle of the pack, where were

farmed off to, uh, to helicopters.

And those that were at the, um, the tail end of the pack,

uh, went onto multi engine.

And it was as brutal as that actually in the.

um, and actually, if you failed to find in training, then you got a P 45

on the way through, uh, it was, it was like having a driving test every single

day and three strikes and you're out.

So if you failed any three flights at any stage, your in

flying training, that was it.

Your P 45.

Wow.

And how long did you spend training for that?

At that

point?

Yeah.

So the, the entire end to end training program is about five years.

Give or take it's about four years worth of training.

Plus as in flight training, plus ground school, plus all the survival skills that

you have to learn on the way through too.

Uh, because if you reject oversee, you need to know what to do.

It's not the same as projecting over land, obviously.

Um, so it's about five years end to end and cost the taxpayer

about 5 million pounds on the way.

it's a really, really good training program.

And I have been a, a flying instructor teaching those baby

pilots as well as baby navigators.

Um, so you start off on, uh, a small light aircraft, a propeller driven aircraft,

um, you know, similar to what you see in the skies, uh, in and around leads.

Uh, and that's about a year long course, really teaching the basics of flight,

you know, up is up and down is down.

um, but not really using the, the airplane as a kind of a flighting

platform per se, but it's very much about getting the basics.

Right.

How do you fly in the day?

How do you fly in cloud?

How do you fly in night?

Um, how do you fly with somebody on your wing?

They're all very, very different skills.

From there you progress onto, um, the Takao, which is kind of a Spitfire

lookalike, two seat Spitfire, lookalike that doubles in speed.

So you go from 120 miles an hour up to a 240 miles an.

And I really start to use it as a bit more of a fighting platform.

Again, really instilling the basics, but very much a using it now as if you

wanted to use it as a weapons platform.

So you start to do tail chasing, which is kind of follow my leader in the sky.

So it's not air combat, but it's the principles of air

combat, um, and time on target.

So you fly low level over the ground at 250 feet above, uh, above the ground.

Uh, and you have to hit a, a target, whatever that might.

Or, or be it pretend if you like, so you're not weapon hearing or anything

like that, uh, and hit that target within 10 seconds or you fail that flight.

Um, so very much getting the basics together at 240 miles an hour, then

you go into Hawks, um, which is similar to what the red arrows fly.

Um, in fact, identical to what the red arrow fly.

Uh, and there you tool along at a, at a, at a Barney 420

miles, hour or seven miles a.

and now actually you start to, to weapon ear with it.

So you do practice bombing, you do air combat with it.

Um, and you go where the weather's pleasant, uh, cause

the jets go very far, very fast.

So if the weather's, you know, kind of rubbish and angle sea and across

Wales, then you'll just do a quick hop into Scotland, kind, have a fight

in Scotland and come back again.

Uh, and then from year there that's a year long course.

Uh, you zip onto, uh, your platform of choice.

Mine was a tornado.

Uh, the tornado F three, uh, again, a nine month course this time, but

absolutely, you know, your entire flying skills should be honed at this point.

Now it's absolutely using it as a, as a platform.

And what was it that, that pulled you to the tornado?

What's the primary responsibility of the tornado?

Um, so the, the both actually, so there

were two types of tornado.

They both gone outta service now replaced by typhoon and, and lining.

um, there were two types.

Mine was the air defense variant.

So I went and, and did air combat for a living, uh, and the ground attack

variant was the, uh, the bombers.

Um, we did occasionally escort, uh, bombers, um, but kind of

low level was their thing.

And up in the, in the, in the sky was, was my thing.

Um, but that's not to say that we didn't do low level, uh, too, because quite

often we would escort them, um, down in the weeds, along with the, uh, along

with the, uh, my gr colleagues, my ground record colleagues, um, In terms

of what, you know, kind of put me there, actually the military put me there.

What I mean by that is you go through your, um, your, your

time on the Hawks at the valley and, and you get streamed there.

So, um, the very, very good guys went onto the single seats, the

Harriers and, uh, the Jaguars, um, I did get a single seat recommended.

There were three slots and I came fifth.

Um, and because I did very well at air combat, uh, throughout

that part of training, then I ended on the tornado F three.

And that was it.

I didn't, as with all things military, you don't get a, a, a say in these

things, you just, um, go away.

You are told

what, what sort of your highlight of, um,

of flying the tornado F three?

Um, Probably display flying.

Um, so I, I had the pleasure of being given a jet and, and went all

over Europe, uh, going upside down in front of crowds, um, which is,

you know, incredibly pleasing, but actually from a professional point

of view, that is the pinnacle flying.

So to do aerobatics in a fast yet, uh, you can't come below 5,000.

um, and to display in front of clouds, you have to do a work down down to 100 feet.

Um, and that generally took about 80 flights.

Um, and the reason for that is if, if you get it wrong at 5,000 feet, then you've

got 5,000 feet to play with before it all becomes a bit of a jigsaw puzzle.

Whereas if obviously if you get it wrong at a hundred feet, then

actually you have no time whatsoever.

So it's, it's, um, 80 flights to work down.

Um, and that's worked down Overland and over sea, um, because the more flying

you do and, and, and you get that as you, as you go through your flying

training, your, your mind, your, your eyes work with your brain to say, a

sheep should be, this should be this big at 250 feet or a hundred feet.

cows are this big cars are that big.

So, so Overland, you build this natural picture of what 250 feet

looks like, and you don't really need an alternator to tell you how

high you, you are above the ground.

You'd know when you.

You do get caught out to be fair Overland, uh, particularly in

Scotland with the young con for trees, cuz again, you think, you know,

a con for tree is about that big.

So therefore I'm at 250 feet and it's not until the, the warnings

all start blaring at you that you realize that that's a young con for

tree that's barely 10 foot tall and you are now ski across the top of it.

um, but uh, you know, display flying oversee.

You don't have that.

Of course, you know, there's no sheep or cows, uh, wandering around the sea.

Uh, and that's a different skill again, actually to work down, uh,

down to a hundred feet over the.

Because there are no references as to how high you are apart from the

ultimate to in the, um, in the airplane.

No, I have done a

tiny bit, a teeny tiny bit of display flying.

I've done it twice.

Uh, once I had the, what should have been privileged to fly in a Yers Lev

mm-hmm , um, And I didn't know what I was in for in any way, shape or form.

And I felt Caric for three days after I've gone up, cuz it was doing

its twist and its turns, how on earth do you get your inner ears to

understand what they're looking at?

Because I have, I've never felt anything like it.

Mm I, I, some of that is just, you know, practice and, and

use, um, There have been certainly on, on some displays, cause display

flying is where you put the airplane to it's little bit and your body.

Um, so at, you know, 5g, normal flying, I can chat you as we are.

Now.

I can move my hands around the cockpit.

That's fine.

At six G wherever I've got my hand, it is where my hand sits.

Uh, so at six years, six times the weight of, uh, you know, E

everything weighs six times as much.

So your head is six times heavier.

The helmet on your head is six times heavier.

Um, So at six G wherever, I've got my hands where I've

got my head, they stay there.

Um, at seven and eight G now I'm starting to work hard actually to stay awake.

So breathing becomes, um, a real factor in, in staying awake and keeping the

blood pressure, uh, in, in your heart rather than in, in, in the, in your toes.

Cause of course blood is affected by gravity.

So the more gravity you put into your blood, the more it wants to sit in

your feet rather than your brain.

And so you do a special anti G straining maneuver to keep the blood pressure.

Um, but at 90 I'm working so hard actually just to stay awake.

Um, in terms of, you know, kind of, you know, feeling that dizziness,

whenever you went away on two weeks holiday or whatever, you would

lose some of that geo tolerance.

So, um, you would feel a little bit under the weather, not, not in terms

of being sick, but you really felt it actually, it was a real workout

after, after two weeks of leave.

Um, it's

amazing that you can lose it that quickly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So generally you never did an air combat sort of straight off the back of leave.

Um, you would go and do a, another flight that only kind of had moderate amounts

of G rather than large amounts of G.

And again, just trying to protect you as a pilot, um, cuz falling asleep

in, in an airplane that's doing six, seven miles an hour is not ideal.

um, But, uh, you know, there was one memorable display it.

Um, we were displaying just outside of Gatwick.

Uh, and clearly we can't overly Gatwick airport, uh, cuz there's lots of,

um, the, the public flying that don't want their gin and tonics interrupted.

Um, and we were, it was a real tightly confined display.

And at the end of that, I was utterly exhausted.

Um, cuz it was just so tight.

So narrow, you know, really high G forces and the display flight

generally only lasted about eight minutes, but it was a proper workout.

And, and I did actually come off the back of that and kind of sat on the, the

edge of the airplane, panting thinking.

Wow.

That I physically worked hard in that one.

How does your time in the RF influence your NHS?

Um,

I, I think there's an awful lot of transferable skills actually,

and, and that's not just fast jet flying.

That's all military colleagues.

Um, you know, I, I think our value set absolutely matches that of the NHS.

And I think irrespective of which arm forces you're in, whether

that's the army, the Navy, the air force, or even the special

forces, I think probably integrity.

It's probably the, the value that anchors all of the, um, all of

the military together, uh, because ultimately, you know, if you say

you're going to do something, then somebody's life might depend upon that.

Um, and so I think our value set, uh, and our behaviors, uh, our beliefs

are, you know, exactly what the NHS is looking for in terms of, um,

kind of fast jet flying specific.

Then I think, you know, we, we probably.

Align more to perhaps the surgical teams, um, in that the date could

be going just as planned as briefed.

And then some something happens, whether that's a malfunction

or either in your airplane or.

Or somebody else's or catastrophic failure, something like that.

And then suddenly it's, you know, thinking on your feet, it's that dynamic risk,

risk assessment, that continual dynamic risk assessment briefing the teams of

the plan, what we're going to do, where we're going to do it, who's going to

take the lead on what, um, it's that third party risk for me in an airplane.

Cuz if I, if I punch out, that's fine, but actually where's the

jet going to land, you know?

Um, so always make, make sure that we're not going to injur anybody on the ground.

, you know, if we can help it clearly, I, I don't necessarily know where the

Jet's going to land, but I wouldn't eject over the middle of a city.

For instance, I'm try and glide it outside of the city before it punched out.

So there's that third party risk.

Um, and again, that kind of dynamic risk assessment, I think when,

particularly when it all goes wrong.

And what, what, what is it that drew you

to the NHS when you, when you.

You know, decided right.

Let's, let's look for a new career.

Yeah.

So I, I was very fortunate actually that, um, I, I

kind of climbed the ranks and, uh, and, and went into kind of crisis and

contingency planning, um, which was fab.

Actually, I really enjoyed it.

You know, it was getting people and getting equipment from a TOB and hurry.

Um, and.

And, and I really enjoyed that side of life actually.

Um, particularly that helping the people a bit, um, and then kind of took that to,

to Afghanistan where, you know, my patch was not just the, um, the middle east.

Um, I had Syria down to Somalia across the broader middle east, up through

Saudi Bahrain, up to Iran, Iraq, um, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a couple

of stands around the bottom of China.

That was, that was the area with which I was responsible.

And, and then anything flying with the UK plate on it.

Um, excepting a few, a few airplanes, but again, they were,

they were mine to, um, to, to task.

Um, and again, it was, you know, kind of supporting troops under fire.

It was medical evacuations, um, flooding, um, all, all that kind of thing.

You know, aid, mutual aid, all the kind of things, you know, those qualities, if

you like that, that we bring into the NHS.

Um, I did spend three years in the private sector to be fair,

uh, and absolutely hated it, cuz it was all about the bottom line.

It was all about making profit.

It was not about.

uh, and I absolutely, um, kind of love people.

Uh, and I, and I know that actually, so part of my roles

was, uh, a survival instructor.

So I was bare grills, but, uh, definite face for radio . Um, but,

uh, what do you mean when you say a survival

instructor?

Uh, so every squadron has its own survival instructor, so.

Fast yet flying, you know, it, it's great if you stay in the airplane, but actually

you need to know what you're going to do, particularly if you're behind enemy

lines, if you have the unfortunate, um, you know, unfortunately have to reject.

Um, so every, um, uh, crew colleague goes through survival training, um, where you

learn how to survive behind any lines.

And how to ultimately evade the enemy and, um, and be recovered.

Um, my, uh, instruction was, uh, oh, my instructing category was, uh, Europe,

um, and the desert, um, and the desert's a great weight loss program by the way.

um, but, uh, Um, you know, it does make you reflect whilst, you know,

you're trying to survive with nothing but effectively the clothes you're

wearing, uh, you know, trying to find shelter, food, water, it makes you

reflect what's important in life.

And for me, that's people, you know, it's not finance, it, it's not

technology or anything like that.

It's people.

Um, and that kind of really drew me to the NHS actually, it's, it's working

with all like-minded people doing their best for others, IER patient.

Um, and, and that kind of is what drew me to the NHS and, and

there's so many opportunities for growth, um, in the NHS as well.

You know, you're not just trapped in this kind of silo.

You can side step to, to wherever you, you fancy your career to go.

And so what's your day

job now?

So I am general manager for outpatients outpatient CSU here at leads.

so that is, I imagine, uh, calling on all of

your juggling skills from, uh, um,

yeah.

Uh, so I, uh, I lead a team, uh, along with Karen who's,

who's our head of nursing.

Uh, so collectively together, we, uh, we lead a team of 550 colleagues across,

uh, five of the trusts, uh, sites, uh, in terms of activity, the trustees about

1.4 million patients per year outpatients per year, uh, of which, uh, our team

is responsible for about half of that.

Um, so huge, huge, big numbers.

The referral and booking service sits under me.

Um, and two years ago we probably took about 750 calls at the start of this year.

That was up to 1500, um, calls per day.

That is, uh, and last month we were talking 2,600 calls per day.

So, you know, the volume and demand on the service is absolutely huge at the minute.

And that's not just us.

Of course, that's, that's the whole elective pathway.

Um, So, yes, as you say, lots of, uh, skills to juggle, um, lots of challenges

in terms of, you know, even just getting communication out to teams, you know,

across five sites, um, it, it, it all comes back to those skills, values

and everything else that I learned as a, as a young lad in the military.

So are you one of those people that when there's a crisis rather

than sort of go, oh, what are we gonna do?

You sort of get a buzz from it, like, okay, brilliant.

Here's a challenge.

Yeah.

Let's look at what we can.

I, I absolutely love being in the thick of it to be fair.

I hate being on the periphery.

Uh, I do like rolling my sleeves up.

Um, but I guess now as a general manager, that's not for me, I should be on the

periphery kind of, um, you know, kind of, uh, leading the orchestra rather

than actually playing the instrument.

Um, but I do love it actually being in the thick of things and, and that's definitely

part of that kind of military ethos of RO these sleeves up and, and just muck.

, but I think, you know, in terms of when it all goes horribly wrong, I

think, again, one of the benefits of my background actually is planning

for when the worst does happen.

Um, because you know, you would plan a flight and every flight is planned

and briefed, but it was never the same.

The minute the wheels were in the well of the airplane, you know, just have to take.

Uh, all bets were off because the, the weather might not be quite as

briefed the tactics that you thought the bad guys, even during training were

going to employ, they didn't employ.

Um, so you're always thinking on your feet, you're always thinking about a plan.

Do see, act cycle continuously.

or you might have an emergency, whether that's just a minor one that you can

carry for the flight, uh, you know, something doesn't quite work or, or

major ones where, you know, suddenly you, you get gray hairs and, and a

receiving headline, which, you know, thankfully colleagues listen to this.

Can't see.

But, um, uh, I probably had my hand on the ejection handle three times in my.

Um, with a, you know, major emergency where I thought

actually, shall I go, shall I not?

And, and thankfully managed to lung the airplane, but I would think probably,

you know, probably once a year I had a minor gusting major emergency

that actually, you know, really made you think long and hard about.

How you were going to get it back or, or be it not thinking

about objection at that time.

Um, and you know, fast jet flying is unforgiving.

It absolutely is unforgiving.

You know, you do have to think about plan B and, and sadly I've lost many

friends along the way, including a friend who, um, sadly died about about two

months ago, but, you know, he died doing something he absolutely loved, uh, and you

know, wouldn't change it for the world.

Uh, and, and neither would I, to be fair, um, you know, you kind of just

accept that risk, that ultra high.

Uh, day in down, you don't even think about it.

It's just, it is a fabulous, fabulous job and, and was very, very privileged to.

It's so interesting how these two careers, which at first

seem stark polar opposites to each other, actually have such a wide

range of transferable skills that been in some ways they're quite similar.

Uh, Richard, thank you so much for talking to us this week.

It's been really interesting and thanks also to you for joining

us on this listening journey.

I've been Caroline Verdon and this is heroes unmasked.

Heroes unmasked is an UNDER THE MAST audio production.