Will the Cabinet Secretary detail the effectiveness of the delivery of priority treatment for veterans and the advice that is being provided to health boards to ensure that staff are fully aware of how to apply the priority treatment policy?
I understand the Royal British Legion has previously undertaken some research into the application of priority treatment which found awareness was variable among managers and clinicians. However, the research was primarily conducted among English NHS providers. As part of our commitment to raising awareness of the Armed Forces Covenant and healthcare priority for veterans, in September 2017, we issued WHC (2017) 41 Armed Forces Covenant - Healthcare Priority for Veterans to health boards and NHS Trusts in Wales. This guidance provides GPs, consultants, allied health professionals and administrative staff with information on the process of referring veterans eligible for priority healthcare. It goes further than previous guidance in that it encourages staff to ask the question to identify individuals as veterans and to record their veteran status using a consistent clinical code. We have also worked with the Royal British Legion to facilitate their attendance at clinical and other NHS representative bodies to promote the principle of priority treatment.
We do not hold information on whether the health boards collect and publish this information