12th Special Report - Mental health and the Armed Forces, Part One: The Scale of mental health issues: Government Response to the Committee’s Eleventh Report

This is 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.

Read the government's response ↗ Report an error