Armed Forces Covenant

Baroness Jolly Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jolly (LD)]

My Lords, I too would like to join others in thanking the right reverend Prelate for instigating this fascinating debate and for his outline of the effects and benefits of the covenant. I will speak on veterans’ health. Many men and women leave the Armed Forces and have no problems as a result of their service, and they integrate and assimilate into civilian life happily. However, others do not have that same benefit. Local authorities can be signatories to the Armed Forces covenant, but NHS bodies cannot. Veteran health is a responsibility of the NHS, not the military. Once they leave the service, veterans can drop out of the system.

When we think of veterans, it goes almost hand in hand with thinking of the Royal British Legion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, stated, it has called for two distinct changes in population data collection. First, it calls upon GPs to ask a new patient to their list whether they have served in the Armed Forces. This helps the GP to understand what issues might arise, knowing their background. Secondly, it requests that a new question is added to the census, again asking whether an individual has been a member of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. These measures make planning easier for local authorities, which have the responsibility for drawing up a joint strategic needs assessment on health, as well as their public health duties. These were granted under the Health and Social Care Act 2012.

Local authority public health duties include sexual health services, NHS health checks, health protection and a certain number of discretionary services. These are dependent on the local population and can include alcohol and drug abuse services, smoking cessation services, public mental health programmes and dental public health. These are areas in which we know that many veterans have a defined need but, unless the local authority knows about the population, it cannot plan.

Will the Minister give some indication of where in the corridors of Richmond House, or perhaps the Cabinet Office, the Royal British Legion request on the census and on GP registration has reached and when a decision will be made?