16.2 |
Support for injured Service Personnel
and veterans
9.
In April 2001,
the MOD established the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine
(RCDM)
within the
University Hospital Birmingham Foundation Trust (UHBFT), as “a
centre of
military
medical excellence, with academic, teaching and clinical
roles”.
10.
During the
period covered by the Inquiry, the main receiving centre for
casualties
evacuated
from operational theatres was RCDM Selly Oak (one of the hospitals
within
11.
If Selly Oak
was unable to cope with the flow of casualties, the Government
could
activate
the Reception Arrangements of Military Personnel (RAMP) plan,
engaging the
wider NHS
in the treatment of military casualties.
12.
Military
patients requiring further rehabilitation once released from
hospital might
be referred
to the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre (DMRC) at Headley
Court
in Surrey,
the principal medical rehabilitation centre run by the Armed
Forces.3
DMRC
Headley
Court also accepted direct admission from hospitals, and most
combat
casualties
were referred directly to DMRC Headley Court from RCDM Selly
Oak.
13.
DMRC Headley
Court provided both physiotherapy and group rehabilitation
for
complex
musculo-skeletal injuries, and neuro-rehabilitation for
brain-injured patients.
14.
Operation
TELIC was the first major military operation after the closure of
the
military
hospitals in the 1990s. Many medical Service Personnel were
therefore
withdrawn
from NHS Trusts, and military casualties were treated in NHS
Trusts.
15.
Tertiary care
for Service Personnel is provided by the NHS.
16.
From 2002, the
MOD reconfigured its mental health services to focus on
community
rather than
in-patient services, including by establishing 15 military
Departments of
Community
Mental Health (DCMH) throughout the UK to provide out-patient
mental
healthcare
for Service Personnel.4
17.
From 2004,
in-patient mental healthcare was provided by The Priory Group
of
hospitals,
through a contract with the MOD.
18.
Those changes
were in line with NHS best practice, which held that
individuals
should be
treated in as normal as environment as possible, close to their
units, families
and
friends.
19.
The
Ex-Services Mental Welfare Society (generally known as Combat
Stress) runs
three
short-stay residential treatment centres for men and women who have
served in
2
Seventh
Report from the House of Commons Defence Committee, Session
2007-2008, Medical
Care for
the Armed
Forces, HC327,
paragraph 21.
3
Paper MOD,
28 June 2010, ‘Medical Input to Ainsworth Brief’.
4
Seventh
Report from the House of Commons Defence Committee, Session
2007-2008, Medical
Care for
the Armed
Forces,
HC327.
41