Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, how many armed forces personnel are classified as (a) wounded, (b) injured and (c) sick by (i) reason and (ii) service branch.

The numbers of Personnel on Recovery Duty (PRD) by principal cause of medical downgrading and service as at 1 April 2024 is presented in the table below:

Sources: Wounded, Injured and Sick Management Information System (WISMIS), Joint Personnel Administration (JPA) and Defence Medical Information Capability Programme (DMICP).

1 Royal Navy includes the services Royal Navy and Royal Marines

2 Injured includes Injury, poisoning and certain other consequences of external causes (S00–T98)

3. Other includes all other ICD-10 cause code categories

4. Some personnel have no cause information recorded at the point of entering recovery

The UK armed forces are not currently deployed on any combat operations therefore all injuries are non-battle injuries.

The principal cause of downgrading as recorded on an individual’s medical record may not be the reason for entering recovery as an individual can have more than one cause associated with their downgrading.

For some personnel no cause of downgrading information was held at the point they entered recovery. They may have had no cause information recorded, their medical board may have occurred after they entered recovery, or they may still be awaiting a medical board. The cause information is taken from their downgrading and not GP recorded information due to GPs generally recording signs and symptoms. The three single Services differ in their criteria for who receives support from recovery. Due to the differences between the three Services, comparisons between them are not valid and as such the three services have been presented separately.