GP practices are being urged to sign up to the Veteran Friendly Accreditation scheme to improve access to healthcare services, with a new initiative launched by NHS England (NHSE) in collaboration with the UK Government and the Royal College of General Practitioners.
The veteran friendly scheme was originally launched in 2018 and has been shown to be hugely beneficial to service-users, with previous research suggesting that 99% of accredited GP practices recommend it.
Despite this, only around 3,000 (48%) of the GP practices in England are accredited, although there is at least one accredited practice in 90% of all primary care networks.
A new survey of nearly 5,000 veterans in England has also found that nearly two-thirds (63%) would be more likely to seek help if they knew their GP practice had veteran accreditation.
This comes after the study showed that more than half (55%) of the respondents said they had experienced mental or physical issues that could be related to their service history, since leaving the armed forces. The vast majority (84%) of those had their condition deteriorate over time.
One in seven (14%) of these people have not presented to the health service though, with the most common reasons being they prefer to manager the issue alone (30%) and not believing a civilian healthcare professional would understand their experiences (15%).
The Veteran Friendly Accreditation scheme advises busy GP teams on the best way to identify, understand and support the 1.74 million veterans in England.
If necessary, it also enables for referral to veteran physical and mental health specialist services such as Op COURAGE and Op RESTORE.
Associate medical director for armed forces and veterans’ health at NHSE, Dr Jonathan Leach OBE, said the programme helps deliver the best health outcomes possible for veteran patients.
He added that “it also saves busy practice staff precious time by enabling them to more quickly and effectively identify, understand and support veterans – reducing the need for repeat appointments and shortening waiting times for diagnosis and treatments.”
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