Mental Health Services: Veterans
(asked on 26th January 2024) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what discussions she has had with her international counterparts on best practice on tackling veterans’ mental health issues.
Answered by
Maria Caulfield
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Minister for Women)
The Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the Office for Veterans' Affairs engage with the Five Eyes international partners to share best practices on research and policy delivery. This engagement covers a wide range of issues relating to veterans, including mental health. In addition, officials from the Nigerian Government visited the United Kingdom in January 2024 to learn from the UK’s offer to the veteran community, which included health service provision.
Op COURAGE is a bespoke mental health service for veterans and is commissioned by NHS England. NHS England has engaged with partners in the United States and has undertaken global literature research to identify the best practices and use evidence-based learning to develop this service. In 2023, NHS England met with the Australian High Commission to share learnings from Op COURAGE to inform and promote the best practices for veterans’ mental health in Australia.
There have been no additional discussions by the Department with international counterparts on the best practices for tackling veterans’ mental health issues.