Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 10 October to Question 80377 on Armed Forces: Health, and the Answer of 17 November to Question 89590 on Armed Forces: Health Services, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of collecting these metrics for Wales.

Defence uses a Hospital Referral System (HRS) to make and track referrals to the NHS and private healthcare providers. The HRS was introduced in 2024 to centralise and manage all referrals generated by Defence Primary Healthcare (DPHC) Medical and Dental Centres.

Currently not all DPHC Medical Centres in Wales use the HRS in order to make a referral. The Department is working to incorporate this data into the system to ensure there is accurate and consistent reporting across all four nations.