Armed Forces Bill

Debate between Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Patel

Thursday 8th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Patel]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, regrets that he is in the other Chamber for a debate. I have also put my name to the amendment and shall speak to it. In a way, it is a probing amendment. On another amendment we have already discussed the need for service personnel who are injured or suffer harm during their service to have appropriate access to healthcare and to have the ability to follow up on their injuries on a long-term basis, and the Minister replied positively. The amendment merely proposes a way in which a defence counsel may facilitate that happening and give out a number that is linked to the NHS number. I know that all UK citizens have an NHS number, and having a number given to service personnel that was linked to the NHS number would enable the long-term tracking of service personnel, particularly those who needed to access healthcare or had been injured or suffered harm during their time in the service. I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, there has been a long-standing difficulty in being able to identify veterans within the general population. We have traditionally relied on organisations such as the Royal British Legion to help to understand their longer-term health needs. I agree with the noble Lord that there are clear benefits in being able to identify former service personnel to facilitate research and long-term studies into the health effects of service. In order to do so, it seems eminently sensible to use NHS numbers in England and Wales and equivalent patient tracking numbers in the other devolved Administrations.

Because we understand the importance of such identification, much activity has already taken place in this area. The Surgeon-General already has work in hand with colleagues at the Department of Health to determine the best means of identifying former service personnel through their GPs and NHS numbers. This is part of the wider work to inform GPs about the healthcare needs of veterans and their entitlement to priority treatment.

By coincidence, the Royal College of General Practitioners, in collaboration with the Department of Health and the Ministry of Defence, is launching an e-learning package next week that will also highlight to GPs what additional services are available for veterans. This will further encourage GPs to flag any individual’s veteran status on his or her medical record.

We are also putting in measures for the benefit of current members of the Armed Forces. The task of tracking those who are currently serving for the purpose of research is made easier by measures already in hand in the Ministry of Defence. Following agreement between the MoD and the DoH, any service person now referred to the NHS in England and Wales is provided with an NHS number. There is also an ongoing programme of work with the devolved Administrations that will provide an NHS number, or its equivalent in Scotland or Northern Ireland, to all serving personnel. The primary purpose of this is to provide service personnel with seamless access to secondary healthcare and other NHS services. However, it will also allow us to have a robust evidence base through which to understand the healthcare needs of service personnel once they leave the Armed Forces.

I must, however, disagree with the noble Lord on a couple of points. First, I do not agree that we would want to create a bespoke database to capture such information. There are likely to be more cost-effective methods of gaining such information through existing systems. There are also issues of confidentiality and the personal security of individuals that would need to be taken into consideration if such a database were created. I imagine that the noble Lord will understand better than I do the complexity and additional costs of establishing such a bespoke database.

Secondly, I understand that there is simply no need to legislate for such a requirement, and I am sure that none of us would wish to legislate where there was no need.

I trust that I have reassured the noble Lord and the Committee that work is already in train to achieve the effect that the noble Lord desires. I therefore hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment after these assurances.