Hello, we are Shafiq (Sid) Sadiq and Fiona Lamb and together we make up the Armed Forces team here at ELHT.
Anyone with a good memory will recall we did a guest blog last April.
Since then we’ve been busier than anyone ever expected, supporting 1,055 veterans patients across our hospital and community sites. When you think that in 2021 we helped 202 veterans, that’s a huge increase.
The support we offer is wide-ranging and includes anything from organising accommodation for homeless veterans and expediting discharges from wards through to making referrals to Op Courage and the Veterans Trauma Network for those veterans who have found themselves in difficult positions. It can literally be life changing and that makes it an incredibly rewarding job.
The NHS is legally obliged to support our Armed Forces community under the new Armed Forces Covenant Duty and we are here to assist every patient who has served or is currently serving in the Armed Forces. We’re really proud of the work we are doing and the support we offer.
We’ve recently launched a new veterans information pack which is personalised to every patient’s individual circumstances. Each patient we visit receives one of these packs and we chat through the many support options available.
It’s a really useful guide with lots of helpful information, including local veteran support groups, and organisations that provide help with housing, employment and benefits.
We have also worked hard to ensure that when the new Electronic Patient Record goes live on 16 June, there will be a definitive Armed Forces Community referral pathway embedded in the system.
Looking ahead, 2023 is set to be even busier than 2022.
The Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance have asked us to take part in a data capture pilot. It’s an NHS initiative that is trying to better understand how many veterans we see over the course of the year and the different support offered. It will all be useful for future planning.
We’ve also set up an exciting new partnership with a number of Medical Regiments who are wanting to enhance the skills of Combat Medical Technicians. Although they are medically trained, they want more clinical exposure. As a result, we’re offering them placements in our hospitals and the first ones are due to start in April.
On top of our work building links with local veteran organisations and attending nationwide conferences and jobs fairs, we’ve got plans to work with the government and NHS England in supporting homeless veterans as well as build a colleague network of Veteran Champions. It’s a really exciting time for us, and of course the more we do the more we can support Armed Forces personnel.
Our ambition is to be a benchmark of best practice for Trusts nationwide and we’re well on our way to achieving that.
Of course, we can’t do it on our own and we want to say thank you to everyone who is supporting us. We need the help of everyone who works at ELHT to ensure our veterans get the help and support they need, so please ask your patients: have you ever served in the Armed Forces or done national service? If the answer is yes, please make sure it goes on the patient’s plan and we will do the rest.
Thank you for reading.