What is the NSCC?
The Naval Service Casualty Cell (NSCC) acts as the single point of contact and Notifying Authority (NA) for notification, management and tracking of all Naval Service casualties.
What is the Role of the NSCC?
If an incident occurs, either through accident, operations or natural causes, resulting in a Naval Service casualty that is deemed notifiable, the parent Unit of the Service Person (SP) involved raises a Notification of a Casualty (NOTICAS) signal to the JCCC. The JCCC uses Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) to confirm details of the casualty’s Emergency Contact (EC)/Next of Kin (NoK) and then disseminates the information to the NSCC whose first action will be to check whether the EC/NOK has been informed. Very often, primarily for minor injuries, it is the casualty their self who informs their EC. For all Deceased, Missing, Very Seriously Ill (VSI) or Seriously Ill (SI) casualties the NSCC will arrange for the EC/NoK to be informed using a Casualty Notification Officer (CNO).
- The NSCC maintains a Duty Casualty Officer rota which ensures a 24/7 service.
- The NSCC works closely with the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC) in Gloucester, which is the Joint Service lead for the casualty reporting and notification process.
- JCCC deal with compassionate cases where Service Personnel can be returned from deployment on compassionate grounds in the event of an unexpected death in the family, serious illness or serious family crisis.
- Combined, the NSCC and JCCC provide specialist advice to the Naval Service on policy and procedure when dealing with deaths, injuries and illnesses. This policy can be found in JSP 751.
What is a Cloth-on-Cloth Notification?
It is Naval Service policy that, where possible, cloth on cloth notification will occur i.e. RM for RM casualties and RN for RN casualties.
Further information on becoming a CNO can be found in RNTM 01-046/17.
What is a Visiting Officer?
The Naval Service maintains a list of approximately 700 CNOs throughout the UK and in key locations abroad. CNOs can be activated at any time to conduct the KINFORMING of the casualties’ EC/NoK, giving information on the state and location of the casualty.
Once notification has taken place the RNRMW will allocate a Visiting Officer to the casualty and their EC/NoK and thereafter they will become the sole point of contact between the family/friends and the Service.
What is a Funeral Officer?
For all Naval Service deaths the NSCC also maintains a database of trained Funeral Officers. It is MOD policy to arrange a service funeral at public expense or provide funding towards the cost of a private funeral dependent upon the wishes of the family. The Funeral Officer liaises closely with the NoK and will explain the options available. As with CNO’, all Funeral Officers are volunteers from throughout the Naval Service. More information can be found in RNTM 01-047/17.
