UK Gulf Veterans (Mortality Data)

Thursday 31st March 2011 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

Today we have published the most recent figures on the mortality of veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf conflict, covering the period 1 April 1991 to 31 December 2010. These figures have been published as a national statistic notice on the Defence Analytical Services and Advice website.

The data for Gulf veterans are compared to that of a control group known as the “Era cohort” consisting of armed forces personnel of a similar profile in terms of age, gender, service, regular/reservists status and rank, who were in service on 1 January 1991 but were not deployed to the Gulf. As in the previous release, the “Era” group has been adjusted for a small difference in the age-profile of those aged 40 years and over, to ensure appropriate comparisons.

Key points to note in the data are:

There have been 1,193 deaths among the Gulf veterans and 1,216 in the age-adjusted Era comparison group.

The 1,193 deaths among Gulf veterans compare with approximately 1,998 deaths which would have been expected in a similar sized cohort taken from the general population of the UK with the same age and gender profile. This reflects the strong emphasis on fitness when recruiting and retaining service personnel.

These statistics continue to confirm that UK veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf conflict do not suffer an excess of overall mortality compared with service personnel that did not deploy.

The full notice can be viewed at the following address: http://www.dasa.mod.uk/applications/newWeb/www/index.php?page=66&pubType=1

A copy has been placed in the Library of the House.