Veterans Minister 'super encouraged' by mental health support at Op Courage visit
The Veterans Minister has said his experience at one of the bases delivering specialist mental health services to former personnel has left him feeling "super encouraged".
Al Carns, himself a Royal Marines veteran, visited the Barberry in Birmingham, one of the centres delivering Op Courage – the collective name for an NHS mental health and wellbeing service created in 2017 specifically with the Armed Forces community in mind.
He received a national and regional update on the services before meeting both clinicians who deliver and veterans who receive the service.
Mr Carns told BFBS Forces News that Op Courage is "providing a really comprehensive package of support to any veterans that have mental health issues post-service".
"There's been over 30,000 individuals referring to Op courage since its creation," he said.
"That's a superb level of support that we have now. It's a fantastic mechanism to support anyone in an hour of need.
"One of the personal stories I heard today was [when] an individual sat in front of me and said, 'you know, Op Courage gave his son back his father'.
"It really hits home and I think that's really impressive and shows the great work Op Courage is delivering."
The Veterans Minister did also point out that he would like to see a more "focused government structure that can help deliver" mental health services to veterans.
This, he said, would start with understanding the data and "where the issues are and then prioritise resources to those groups of veterans that need it most".
"There's a lot of great charities out there doing fantastic work, individuals across the whole spectrum doing amazing work for veterans," he said. "But there's no central pool of data.
"As a result, it's very difficult sometimes to focus the resource in the right space or the right place at the right time.
"We're going to look at it across Government as well to see how we can help veterans by understanding a holistic picture across the whole country and deliver more support in the right way."
He said this data would help inform the designing of "a new way of supporting veterans".
"But it's going to take a bit of time based on the data that we need to pull together to make sure we get it right, in consultation, with the veterans out there," he said
Finally, Mr Carns reiterated the Government's pledge to put the Armed Forces Covenant into law, stating "it will happen".
"I don't think any other company or organisation, when you sign the contract, asks you to put your life on the line or lose your life in service of your Government.
"That therefore means there's a unique nature to the service in the Armed Forces that needs to be recognised, and indeed needs to be accounted for in individuals when they join the service, when they've served and then post-service as well."
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