Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to take steps to allow NHS professionals to view the health records of ex-military patients from their time in military service.

The Defence Medical Services (DMS) provide primary healthcare for serving personnel. All serving personnel will have a Defence Health Record which records their healthcare through their military service, whether provided by DMS or the National Health Service.

Serving personnel are provided with a medical care summary and a patient’s full Defence Health Record are transferred on request from their NHS general practitioner (GP). These are then available to be used and viewed as part of the individual’s medical records. These would also form part of digital records available via the NHS App and held by the respective veteran patient.

To improve the transfer of healthcare information, DMS is working towards a greater interoperability with NHS systems and the electronic transfer of medical records from DMS to NHS GPs.