Armed Forces: Health
(asked on 26th February 2018) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Earl Howe on 12 February (HL5176), what are the figures for the Medical Deployability Standard categories for (1) the army, (2) the Royal Navy, and (3) the Royal Air Force.
There are three Medical Deployability Standard (MDS) categories for the Armed Forces.
Medically Fully Deployable (MFD) personnel are those medically fit for duty with no employment limitations.
Medically Limited Deployable (MLD) personnel are medically fit for duty with minor employment limitations. MLD personnel may have a medical condition or functional limitation that prevents the meeting of all MFD requirements.
Medically Not Deployable (MND) personnel are medically fit for duty with major employment limitations. MND personnel are not currently deployable on Operations but may be deployable on UK based exercises and should be able to work effectively for at least 32.5 hours per week. MND status, as with other MDS categories, is often only temporary due to injury or illness, and may change following medical review.
The table below provides the number and percentage of UK Regular Armed Forces personnel by permanent and temporary MDS category, by Service, as at 1 January 2018.
| All Services | Naval Service | Army | RAF | ||||
No | % | No | % | No | % | No | % | |
All Personnel | 137,263 |
| 29,264 |
| 77,467 |
| 30,532 |
|
Medically Fully Deployable | 110,154 | 80.3% | 24,458 | 83.6% | 60,396 | 78.0% | 25,300 | 82.9% |
Medically Limited Deployable | 13,967 | 10.2% | 2,071 | 7.1% | 9,972 | 12.9% | 1,924 | 6.3% |
Temporary | 4,329 | 3.2% | 522 | 1.8% | 3,036 | 3.9% | 771 | 2.5% |
Permanent | 9,522 | 6.9% | 1,506 | 5.1% | 6,902 | 8.9% | 1,114 | 3.6% |
Medically Not Deployable | 13,104 | 9.5% | 2,717 | 9.3% | 7,082 | 9.1% | 3,305 | 10.8% |
Temporary | 10,284 | 7.5% | 2,189 | 7.5% | 5,324 | 6.9% | 2,771 | 9.1% |
Permanent | 2,720 | 2.0% | 505 | 1.7% | 1,733 | 2.2% | 482 | 1.6% |
Naval Service includes Royal Navy and Royal Marines. Please note that some of the total figures may be greater than the sum of their parts. This is because data on the temporary or permanent Medical Deployability Standard status of some personnel was not available.