Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the commitment in the Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan 2022-24 to improve personalised treatment by clinicians who understand the military environment and specialise in the type of physical health problems veterans may have, what steps his Department is taking to (a) employ those clinicians and (b) train existing clinicians.

The Veterans Trauma Network uses consultants with military experience who are working within the National Health Service (NHS), either as part of their military role, because they are a reservist or because they used to be a military consultant, to support veterans with service-related physical healthcare needs.

Initiatives to train clinicians to ensure they understand the military environment include the Veteran Friendly GP accreditation scheme, which looks to support general practitioners to learn more about the needs of veterans, and the Veteran Healthcare Covenant Alliance which works to ensure that accredited NHS Trusts have a clinical champion, and that staff are aware of the needs of veterans. There is also a free to access e-learning package on Health Education England’s e-learning platform.