Armed Forces: Health

(asked on 23rd October 2025) - View Source
Questioner
Helen Maguire Portrait
Helen Maguire
(Liberal Democrat - Epsom and Ewell)

Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what information his Department holds on the 10 most common medical conditions that kept British armed forces personnel from being deployed in the latest year for which data is available.

Answered by
Louise Sandher-Jones Portrait
Louise Sandher-Jones
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence)
This question was answered on 31st October 2025

The following table provides information held by the Ministry of Defence on all principal cause of downgrading for Medically Not Deployable (MND) UK Armed Forces personnel as at 1 September 2025:

Table 1: Medically Not Deployable (MND) UK armed forces personnel1 by principal ICD-10 cause code group2, numbers and percentages3 as at 1 September 2025

Number

%

Total Medically Non Deployable

13,113

All ICD-10 coded Medically Non Deployable

12,399

100

1. Musculoskeletal disorders (M00 - M99) and Injuries (S00 - T98)

5,376

43

2. Mental and behavioural disorders (F00 - F99)

2,747

22

3. Factors influencing health status (Z00 - Z99)

942

7

4. Clinical and laboratory findings (R00 - R99)5

614

4

  1. Digestive system disorders (K00 - K93)

426

3

  1. Ear and mastoid process diseases (H60 - H95)

409

3

  1. Circulatory system disorders (I00 - I99)

398

3

  1. Neoplasms (C00 - D48)

276

2

  1. Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic (E00 - E90)

235

1

  1. Nervous system disorders (G00 - G99)

233

1

  1. Genitourinary system diseases (N00 - N99)

194

1

  1. Skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases (L00 - L99)

178

1

  1. Respiratory system disorders (J00 - J99)

128

1

  1. Eye and adnexa diseases (H00 - H59)

107

<1

15. Blood disorders (D50 - D89)

48

<1

  1. Infectious and parasitic diseases (A00 - B99)

39

<1

  1. Congenital malformations (Q00 - Q99)

33

<1

  1. Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium (O00 - O99)

16

<1

DMICP description not codable in ICD-10

321

No board information on DMICP

393

1 Figures provided are for full time trained (Royal Navy and RAF)/trade trained (army) and serving against

requirement personnel.

2 Principal read code and description recorded at medical board was converted to the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems Tenth Revision (ICD-10) coding scheme.

3 All percentages are of the number of cause coded Medically Not Deployable downgrades.

4 Pregnancies reported within the ‘Factors influencing health status’ ICD category include all healthy pregnancies. Any downgradings related to complications with pregnancy are included within the ‘Pregnancy, childbirth and the puerperium’ category.

5 Clinical and laboratory findings include symptoms and abnormal clinical findings - such as irregular heartbeat and abdominal pain - which are ill-defined and may not have a diagnosis that can be elsewhere classified.

Personnel graded as MND are not fit to deploy on Operations; however, they may be deployable on UK based exercises. Personnel graded MND as at 1 September, and included in this response, may not have been scheduled to deploy and the medical condition may not have prevented deployment.

Reticulating Splines