“Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve service, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial service.”

The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation ensuring that those who serve or who have served in the armed forces, and their families, are treated fairly.

The Covenant applies to organisations responsible for delivering education, healthcare, and housing services and on 11 July we were joined by 23 network members to talk about what they are already doing, their plans and aspirations for the future of this project.

We were fortunate to have among our guests' veterans as well as family members of military personnel whose experience of the armed forces has led them to being involved with the Armed Forces Covenant.

Some organisations have just signed up to the covenant and are in the very early stages as well as looking into linking up with other organisations, but a good number of our guests already had a well-established service.

Top tips from the discussion

• Your electronic patient records may have the ability (a tick box) to identify who is a member of the armed forces. This will enable your veteran lead to engage with the patients by talking to them about the experience they are having in the hospital and maybe address and signpost any issues that they have.
• How do you know if someone is a veteran. Ask the question “Have you served in the armed forces?”. Ward clerks can ask the question, but they also need volunteers to ask the question when they engage with patients. Sometimes the recognition is all they need. Other times it can be more complex.
• Advertise that you are veteran aware, veteran friendly and have signed the covenant. Explain that there are armed forces leads within your organisation.
• If you don't have a dedicated armed forces champion, you can access armed forces champion training which will give you an understanding of the veteran community and then enable you to act on their behalf and contribute towards identifying and signposting them into the various charities.
• Volunteers with lived experience of the military are a powerful resource.
• Have champions amongst your team to promote the service.

“If you know somebody who's served in the military, have a good conversation with them about what it's like, what the culture is like, don't be afraid to say ‘I don't know, I'll find out for you’; and go away and find things out. Because there's nothing worse than talking to somebody who's pretending that they know what things are like.”

• Be understanding of the trials and tribulations of moving around the country or the world, dropping to the bottom of waiting lists and not being able to register with dentists etc.

Volunteering for veterans

• One organisations has two trained ex forces volunteers who identify and support patients coming on site
• In the Manchester area they have a remote researcher volunteer role. The volunteer talks to families to find out their needs. A lot of veterans live in Central Manchester, so they often work from the Walking with the Wounded Office.
• Community shop volunteers. This is a great opportunity for those moving around to have another group of friends.
• In one organisation, once a month their Armed Forces Covenant Lead will go to the RAF sites in their area to promote their voluntary service and NHS professionals and substantive posts as well.

“‘Volunteer to Career’ is a great initiative, and I would encourage anybody to reach out to armed forces organisations, local units. Reach out because they will not come and find you.”

Links to organisations and projects

• Walking with the Wounded.
• BEN FOGLE PRESENTS WALKING WITH THE WOUNDED
• Operation Courage
• Lizzie Kingsbury, Armed Forces Community Link Worker at Help and Care joined us for this session and talked about the Demonstrator Project. They have two armed forces leads ensuring that businesses are signing up to the covenant. As well as talking to and training volunteers, one of the key areas of the Demonstrators project is training social prescribers to identify the armed forces cohort. There is a whole training package to give people an understanding of the background, culture, language and all the things that make it a unique community. You can find out more from this NHS Dorset webinar recording. PPG webinar – Armed Forces and Veterans Lizzie gives an overview of the help available for GP practices in Dorset to support Armed Forces personnel, Veterans and their families. Tracy Rowland from Carers Support Dorset explains how they can help identify and support carers in the Armed Forces & Veterans community and how PPGs and GP practices can help with this.