Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what the average time for (a) processing and (b) concluding medical assessments is for applicants to (i) the armed forces, (i) the Navy and (iii) the Army (A) before and (B) during the covid-19 outbreak.

Royal Navy

The average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Royal Navy (Regular Officers and Other Ranks) to having a medical assessment was as follows:

Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.

Army

The median average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Army as a Regular Other Rank to having a medical assessment was as follows:

Note

The Army was only able to reinstate physical medical assessments from June 2020.

Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.

Royal Air Force

The mean average time taken from the submission of an application to join the Royal Air Force (Regular Officers and Other Ranks) to having a medical assessment was as follows:

Notes

Only includes applications processed via the digital recruitment system.

Only includes applications with a recorded medical booking date.

Candidates are informed of the outcome by the Military Medical Examiner (MME) on the day of the assessment; this is followed up in writing.