16.2 |
Support for injured Service Personnel
and veterans
trained
delivery network with a national footprint. SSAFA could be best
deployed to
provide
support on discrete activities to specific groups.
90.
Lt Gen Mans
advised colleagues in December 2006 that Gen Dannatt
considered
it was
timely to hold a wide-ranging conference on welfare and aftercare
provision
for Service
leavers and veterans, “[a]gainst a background of changing
operational
imperatives,
high commitment levels and evolving welfare demands, as well as
a
steadily
declining knowledge and consciousness amongst the public and in the
media
of military
needs and expectations during and after service”.54
91.
The
Tri-Service Welfare Conference was held in April
2007.55
92.
Gen Dannatt
wrote in his autobiography that although no major decisions
were
taken at
the conference, “all those present were left in no doubt that those
of us at the
top of the
organisation [the MOD] knew what the problems were, understood
them, and
had a
determined commitment to tackle them”.56
In the UK,
charitable organisations have traditionally played an important
role in providing
care to
Service Personnel and veterans, often working closely with the MOD,
the NHS and
the private
sector.
Lt Gen
Lillywhite told the Inquiry that the MOD welcomed the involvement
of charitable
organisations
(although it might not always agree with their
approach):
“They all
have a desire to actually progress the care of Servicemen … and
they
actually
contribute significantly to; one, promoting the cause of
particularly the ex-
Servicemen;
secondly, they are quite good at challenging us on what we are
doing
or not
doing; and thirdly, they often bring a degree of expertise or
approach that we
might not
otherwise have recognised.
“… it is a
complex relationship but they are an essential part, in my view, of
our
society in
terms of actually ensuring that veterans in particular, but to a
lesser extent,
serving
soldiers, get the appropriate care that they
require.”57
In his
autobiography, Gen Dannatt described how, in 2007, charitable
organisations
became
increasingly involved in military medical and welfare issues, as
the number of
casualties
in Iraq and Afghanistan grew and the “fragility of the …
arrangements for our
seriously
injured become painfully apparent”.58
That
fragility related not to clinical care,
which was
excellent, but to the broader support that was available to injured
personnel
and their
families.
54
Paper Mans,
20 December 2006, ‘Army Welfare and Aftercare Conference Victory
Services Club,
London on
Mon 16 Apr 07’.
55
Minute MOD
[junior official] to PS/Minister for Veterans [MOD], 5 June 2007,
‘Veterans Forum –
15th June
2007’.
56
Dannatt
R. Leading
from the Front. Bantam
Press, 2010.
57
Public
hearing, 20 July 2010, pages 70-72.
58
Dannatt
R. Leading
from the Front. Bantam
Press, 2010.
55