11th Report - Mental Health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues
- HC No.
- HC 813
- Published
- 25 Jul 2018
- Items
- 0
- Government response
- Government response published 16 October 2018. Read the government's response ↗
Select committee: Defence Committee
Armed forces and veterans mental health inquiry
Closed
Opened 31 Jan 2018
Closed 31 Jan 2018
Defence Committee Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Inquiry scope (the committee's words)
The Committee examined the extent of mental health issues across both serving armed forces personnel and veterans and addressed the following questions: To what extent do current statistics accurately reflect the level of mental health issues in serving armed forces personnel and veterans, including PTSD? What are the challenges to accurately assessing the extent of mental health issues in serving armed forces personnel and veterans and how could government improve its understanding of those issues? How does the level of mental health issues, services and outcomes in serving armed forces personnel and veterans: - compare both to the actual level in the general population and to public perceptions of mental health issues in armed forces personnel and veterans? - vary between different groups of serving and former personnel, including reservists, those who have been deployed on operations and early leavers? - vary regionally across the UK and across the devolved administrations? What proportion of mental health issues in veterans is attributable to service in the Armed Forces and how well is this measured and understood? To what extent does the military environment for serving armed forces personnel mitigate against the development of mental health issues?
Where it stands
The inquiry is closed, opened 31 January 2018.
The committee has published 1 report, most recently 11th Report - Mental Health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues on 25 July 2018.
The government's response
Published 16 October 2018.
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government states that it "welcomes the HCDC's report" and responds recommendation by recommendation, agreeing with some conclusions, declining to commission some research, and stating that other work is under consideration.
- It "agrees" that causation of mental health conditions is very difficult to prove, and that military service can have a positive effect on mental health. It reports £250,000 from Chief of Defence People for further analysis of King's Centre for Military Health Research data.
- On neurotoxicity research, it says it "would neither be methodologically robust nor an efficient use of resources" for the MOD to commission its own, citing too few patients and competing medical research requirements.
- On veteran suicide recording, the Ministerial Armed Forces Covenant and Veterans Board "will consider how to work across Government Departments" and with the Devolved Administrations to "seek changes" in how Coroners and the Procurator Fiscal record veterans' deaths. No date is given.
- It says the MOD "is unsure of the value" of investigating regional variation in mental health by place of recruitment. It also says priority NHS treatment for veterans is "always subject to the clinical need of all patients" and is not available in Northern Ireland.
Reports
- 11th Report - Mental Health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues25 July 2018
Evidence
- 3 oral evidence sessionsLatest 26 June 2018
Recent activity
- 12th Special Report - Mental health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues: Government Response to the Committee’s Eleventh Report16 October 2018, Report published
- 11th Report - Mental Health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues25 July 2018, Report published
- Oral evidence session26 June 2018, Oral evidence
Reports
Oral evidence sessions
On smaller screens, scroll horizontally to read every column. Keyboard users can focus the table region and use the arrow keys.