Armed Forces: Discharges
(asked on 15th November 2022) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what proportion of medical discharges from the Armed Forces were for mental and behavioural disorders in each of the last ten years.
Medical discharges in the UK Armed Forces involve a series of practices and protocols, which differ in each Service to meet their specific employment requirements. Due to these differences, data is presented separately for each Service.
The table below provides the numbers and percentage of UK Regular Armed Forces personnel who were medically discharged with a principal cause of mental and behavioural disorders between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2022, by Service and financial year.
Royal Navy | Army | RAF | ||||
Year | Number | % | Number | % | Number | % |
2012-13 | 45 | 10% | 188 | 11% | 30 | 15% |
2013-14 | 36 | 11% | 279 | 13% | 29 | 19% |
2014-15 | 40 | 11% | 282 | 13% | 37 | 25% |
2015-16 | 72 | 17% | 363 | 21% | 38 | 28% |
2016-17 | 62 | 14% | 385 | 20% | 42 | 30% |
2017-18 | 89 | 18% | 418 | 25% | 68 | 36% |
2018-19 | 83 | 21% | 359 | 29% | 52 | 33% |
2019-20 | 92 | 25% | 350 | 35% | 73 | 43% |
2020-21 | 80 | 24% | 311 | 47% | 56 | 46% |
2021-22 | 127 | 26% | 306 | 46% | 72 | 43% |
Figures include trained and untrained UK Regular personnel. Army Regular personnel include Gurkha and Military Provost Guard Service. The Royal Navy includes both Royal Navy and Royal Marines.
Percentages presented are the percentage of all cause coded medical discharges.
Medical discharges due to mental and behavioural disorders were identified as personnel discharged with a principal or contributory cause of discharge coded as F00 - F99 according to the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems Tenth Revision (ICD-10).
Figures for cause information between 2019-20 and 2021-22 are provisional and subject to change.