Gone are the days when service personnel would be whisked off to a hm forces private hospital by the unit Medical Officer. Our soldiers now have to travel greater and greater distances just to see a hm forces healthcare doctor. But what happens if the doctor then refers them on into secondary care, perhaps for physiotherapy, an x-ray or to see a consultant?
Twenty years ago there was a national network of military facilities, manned by military doctors and nurses. They weren’t always the most modern buildings but the service person felt safe amongst his own kind. The hm forces healthcare doctors spoke their language, understood their lifestyles and their neighbour in the ward would be off the same block. But the main advantage was getting the treatment required rapidly at a speed that was required to keep the serviceman “out of his rôle” for as short a period of time as possible. What is the point of keeping a professional standing army at great expense to the country when a certain percentage – currently about 8% - are physically unable to perform their assigned rôle due to having to wait, like the rest of us, for forces healthcare treatment from the NHS. Because that’s the reality of how our servicemen are treated these days. Not that we are questioning the quality of army healhcare that the NHS provides; it’s the speed of accessing it. Most, but not all, of us civilians can hobble to work and perform our various desk jobs if we are injured; but you can’t undergo rigorous training, heave in and out of vehicles or carry heavy loads with a dodgy knee. The Armed Forces is one career area that needs fit men and women and it needs them now, not next week or next month.
Forces families fare little better. They too need to be able to access the military hospitals - it used to be one of the few perks of being a Forces spouse. They perhaps don’t need the treatment as quickly as service personnel but they have a problem that most civilians don’t have. By following their loved ones around the world, moving house usually every two years, they can become caught in the “waiting list trap”. This is where, say, an Army wife is set to move from Aldershot to Catterick in 2 months time, but then has a medical problem that requires an MRI scan. She gets an appointment for four months time but by then she will have moved to Catterick. Despite various MOD initiatives to overcome this, dependents have to start at the bottom of a new waiting list at the new location. So, for slightly different reasons, both Forces personnel and their families are struggling with the new reality of having to slot into the NHS.
What are the solutions? Either the MOD has to spend more money and provide the forces with the care that they deserve; or, the individual has to take steps to ensure that they can access private forces healthcare where and when they need it. Sadly in reality purchasing private private forces healthcare costs money.
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