Select Committee on Defence Written Evidence


Further supplementary memorandum from the Ministry of Defence

  During the evidence session on 27 November the Committee asked my Department to provide information on the throughput of cases of Service personnel being treated at the Priory, and how many were subsequently discharged from the Services.

  In July 2006 the MoD carried out a one-off snapshot on the long-term outcomes of Service patients admitted to the Priory hospitals between 1 April 2004 and 31 March 2005. This exercise looked at the cases of some 260 Service patients who were admitted as in-patients under our contract with the Priory Group in that year. Of these, around 65% returned to work and 35% had been discharged by July 2006. Of those discharged, slightly more than half were medically discharged. The rest were discharged either as temperamentally unsuitable, by premature voluntary release or by other means, for example, at the end of engagement.

  The MoD is currently developing systems that will enable us to have much better visibility of clinical outcomes as a matter of routine in the future. In January 2007 the Defence Analytical Services Agency (DASA) began collecting information on patients who had attended a Department of Community Mental Health facility (DCMH) and patients admitted to the Priory as in-patients. The data so far collected is too recent to allow us to draw meaningful conclusions as to clinical outcomes and relationship to discharge data.

  I would also like to take this opportunity to clarify how we provide mental health services to our serving personnel and to rectify any potential confusion about the provision of mental health care in the community. The MoD's own mental health services are configured to provide community-based mental health care in line with national best practice. We do this by providing outpatient assessment and treatment at our military regional Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMH) centres sited in military bases with care provided by either military mental health care professionals or civilians employed by the MoD. This means that serving personnel usually remain with their units and receive outpatient care in a military environment. This means that serving personnel have no need to, and do not, receive outpatient care via the NHS in a civilian community environment.

  In-patient care, when necessary for acute serving personnel cases, is provided through our contract with the Priory Group in dedicated regional psychiatric units. Close liaison is maintained between local DCMHs and the Priory units to ensure that all Service elements relating to an in-patient care and management are addressed. The arrangements with the Priory Group mean that the majority of our patients can be treated much closer to their parent units than was the case when we maintained the last of our own psychiatric hospitals.

Derek Twigg MP

15 December 2007



 
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