Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent progress the Government has made on making NHS services more accessible for veterans.

We are supporting The Royal College of General Practitioners’ accreditation programme, to increase the accessibility to veteran specialist care in general practitioner (GP) practices. To date, there are over 1,000 veteran friendly accredited GP practices.

The Government has put in place initiatives to help with better identification of veterans through the healthcare system. An additional £94 million has been released by the Ministry of Defence for Project CORTISONE to provide the digital interface between Defence Medical Services and the National Health Service, ensuring safe and smooth transition of medical records.

The Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance seeks to improve the care the armed forces community receive from the NHS. Funding has recently been secured to appoint full-time regional leads for the seven regions and the Alliance has now accredited over 101 NHS trusts. On 19 January, the Government launched the veteran’s strategy action plan. This includes a commitment of an additional £18 million over the next three years for veteran’s health services such as Op COURAGE.