Veterans win fight for 'smart ID cards'
Four million ex-servicemen and women to get priority for health, housing and benefits
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Independent Minds
Four million former servicemen and women are to be given veterans' cards to ensure they get priority treatment for NHS healthcare and housing, and discounts for services such as transport.
The Ministry of Defence plans to introduce the cards at the beginning of 2010, The Independent has learnt, in an attempt to begin repairing the damage done to the military covenant between nation and armed forces under New Labour.
The launch is expected to be formally announced this autumn with the first veterans' cards handed to new armed forces leavers in spring next year, before being rolled out to the country's four million former service personnel.
The aim is to ensure that those who have risked their lives in combat get front-of-the-queue treatment and financial benefits. Similar systems in the US and France offer veterans subsidised travel and discounts from private companies.
At a time when the armed forces have been stretched to breaking point in two bloody conflicts, there has been mounting anger that the priority treatment promised by the Government 18 months ago has failed to materialise. "We now need to make it happen," the Defence minister Kevan Jones told this newspaper. "We will provide veterans' ID cards so the person can say 'I have served in the services' and get priority access to treatment." Mr Jones spoke in response to this newspaper's campaign to get better mental health treatment for traumatised troops, launched after the Victoria Cross winner Johnson Beharry – the country's most decorated serving soldier – revealed his own combat-related trauma and urged the Government to stop failing his fellow soldiers with sub-standard or non-existent care.
Lieutenant General Sir Freddie Viggers, who until last year was Adjutant-General in charge of personnel, welcomed the veterans' card. "It is about value and self worth, not about a piece of plastic," he said. "We carry these cards for the whole of our service and when we leave we are required to hand them in. Psychologically, it is a bad thing. It is a little bit of plastic but it represents who you are and what you did."
The Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, former commanding officer with the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment, said: "It is about bloody time. At last, a reasonable, sensible minister [Mr Jones] who listens to ideas from across the political spectrum."
The categories in the Forces Discount Scheme currently include some retraining, sports clubs, childcare, insurance, holidays and travel.
Veterans and senior soldiers have called on the Government to acknowledge a predicted "explosion" of traumatised troops from recent conflicts and provide specialist mental healthcare. "No one is suggesting there is not a problem," Mr Jones said, "but we need a grounded debate to understand it."
He admitted that many former servicemen were "lost" in the NHS system and vowed to ensure every GP was made to record whether or not a patient had served in the forces.
However, he refused to concede that former service personnel needed separate, dedicated care and risked the wrath of charities by suggesting they should fund provision of military health advisers. "Combat Stress [the charity] gets £3m of taxpayers' money. I don't think the Government should do it all. It is not about money. It is about the system working better."
To sign our petition for better care for Britain's returning troops, go to independent.co.uk/veteranscampaign.
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Comments
I don't remember signing anything.
Fair enough if they're defending us against invaders,
but if they choose to attack civilians in a far-flung country
well then they're on their own.
on their own! hahahah, you are truly stupid. Civilians? tell me my super intelligent friend, have you been to any of these countries which ye speak? or seen first hand? or are you a barrack room lawyer, champagne socialist with armchair opinions on everything???? hmmmme thinks yes!
killing civilians. you tw*t. Only the ones who are armed and hiding in mud yards behind children and women! are they civilians???? no. Do the poor little kids in the compounds sometimes get killled. Yes.
Are you that stupid you cant do the math? or work out the counter balance of blame.
Keep slagging the dead soldiers my friend, keep doing it. I dare you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbRL5YGZ
Choose? I'm not keen on the troops being in Iraq and Afghanistan myself but the troops were sent to these countries by our elected government. I don't see why you think the troops should be "on their own" because of a government decision they had no control over?
No doubt you're angry about the way things have panned out, many people are, but you should direct your displeasure to the government and politicians responsible.
I don't think it's a legitimate excuse for them to say they only do what they're told.
This will be abused and it will cause dissention against troops, for if you imagine sitting in an A&E for four hours, surely your turn is next, your child is ill and up waltzes Tommy Atkins and moves right into the front of the queue because he has a card?
Whatever happened to the military health system? Like the QE on Woolwich common which saved my hand? And after being shot in Africa, my leg too.
This government needs to invest in the NHS so that there is no need for elite cards, no need for four or more hours wait.
And as some of the comments here have said, people would be more forgiving of this if these troops were so injured in the defence of the realm, defence of American business interests is no concern of ours and to be blunt, in the case of Iraq, it was every soldiers duty to refuse to deploy because it was I L L E G A L!!!
Well, if they send me one, I will send it back to them with an idea of where they can swipe it, I did my service, was abandoned by the forces once returned to civvy street, I've never expected special treatment and this is more indication of this government turning Britain into a two tiered society, once the armed forces get this, so too will the police, civil service, social workers and bloody traffic wardens too, what we are seeing here is the same concept of the Russian Ulairi, where they had their own lanes in the road and could run a red light with impunity, that is what is on the cards here...
These lot will lap them up for the carrot on the end of it.
Why should these types get 'priority' over everyone else.
You want it, join the queue like everyone else
More deserving cause you were what!, in the army... so what!.
Join the queue.
If that really does mean that they could get priority for operations and the like, then it's an awful and frankly frightening idea, since it undermines a cardinal principle of the NHS: that treatment is according to clinical need. After all, what about firefighters, who also risk their lives in their everyday jobs? Or police officers? Where would it end?
And
I'm certainly all for better mental healthcare for veterans, and have no problems with the other discounts, but the NHS is a special case. A card which potentially allows you to push in ahead of sicker patients is immoral, no matter what you've done in your life.
It would be interesting to know exactly what they offer ex-servicemen and women in these countries. Anyone?
I thought the U.S. had a top of the range military health system - separate from that of the general public. The bog standard French health service seems very good.
Probably this proposal more than any other makes me feel like going down to Parliament on Wednesday to get my head kicked in by some police just doing their job. Alas, I am 12,000 miles away in a land where ordinary folk have long equated their politicians with yakuza, so I don't have to put my money where my mouth is!
On showing this to my Japanese partner, she laughed, and said that it is funny because, in a country where we acknowledge our discrimination but do little about it, you westerners seem to spend most of your time fighting for equality but now your "oh-so-genuinely" elected politicians are discriminating against ordinary folks in favour of soldiers!
Could this be a sign of things to come - trying to keep gov't services on-side in the event of a revolt?
On the money as usual, ancientone! I just hope we can get integrity and sense back to western life as soon as possible, or we'll all be toeing the Chinese line by 2050, what fun that'll be!
Think I am joking? Well, aren't many ex-servicemen competing for resources, etc, with the disabled, the mentally ill, etc? Why should others who could never serve be squeezed for the benefit of those who did?
In conclusion, a great idea and cant wait to receive MY card, a card I believe I am fully entitled to, sorry but you have to understand it from all angles, and this is my view. Meanwhile all of you "moaners" continue to live in a free world, lets hope it lasts, if you really want to become a neautral like Switzerland then I suggest you emigrate there on your big fat public sector pension, I certainly couldn't afford to!
Australia (Commonwealth country remember) gives vetrans free travel on public transport, a nice way of showing respect, the Australian public fully accept it and more importantly respect the idea. UK needs to start supporting the young men and women of all arms for laying their lives on the line for each and every one of you.
Here ends the reading!
But I wonder whether the military would be better served, by properly funded dedicated services, centres of excellence in e.g trauma, rehab, PTSD,. Specialising in veterans problems .
The govts chosen solution: dump the burden on the NHS. A nasty government, which refuses to do the honest thing, of increasing taxes to cover its war health costs. Makes us pay anyway but deviously - through longer waits, being bumped off waiting lists, etc.
What the veterans have are health problems and the key decisions about how best to address those, need to be made by health professionals, on health grounds. This is solution seems devised mainly by managers and spin doctors - and if so the veterans health needs will again be put second.
But this is usual. Two weeks ago, the same was exposed in Staffordshire: managers were responsible for several hundred deaths, through prioritizing financial and management goals, above health care. I have yet to hear that any of those managers, have been charged with manslaughter or professional misconduct.
Quoting rubbish at the beginning of your post and then continuing as this is fact and the basis of your whole argument is typical of politicians.
You should have mobilised your friends and democratically stopped the war. If the military had done as you suggest you would no doubt be whinging about fascist military coups d'etat.
Of course, if the High Command had any morals or integrity they'd have refused to go Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Then Mr Blair could have been quietly taken away in a straight jacket and who knows, robbed of the pretend value that our "presence" lent the venture, maybe neither invasion would have occurred.
There is no force on earth than can compel a man to commit an immoral act, he chooses to perform it or rebels against it in his heart. If he goes along he is complicit and "following orders' no longer avails as a defence.
This is another of Brown's crap ideas. Born in desperation, clumsy and inept in execution, unintended consequences to follow and haunt.
What next?
Policemen? Firemen? Ambulance crew? Basically what it means is this - if you're unemployed and poor you're now bottom of the pile when it comes to resources.
Gordon Brown should be arrested.
thank god for some common sense.
Four million ex-servicemen and women to get priority for health, housing and benefits
Terri Judd
I seem to agree that these veterans ought to get the best of everything in these days. After all, they ought for the wars that were real danger to the Great Britain. When you compare those days when these went to fight, and the economy they brought with them after the fights, we see to be lost in the dunes. We go to wars that are not wanted and we bring the soldiers back in the box, give them 21 guns salute, wear black and try to show the respect of the citizenship to the widows or children or the parents. We seem to forget very fast that the soldiers who leave everything to fight for the country. They now have come back and deserve the best. What we think is smart ID will be too much for them as these were not available then. I am not in UK and I see how Iraq and Afghanistan wars are fought. Taxpayers? money goes with no dividends. The old ones brought back the glory. Cannot we give them what they want now? How much would that cost us compared to what they did? I also read the comments of, ?Two wrongs do not one right, but I state that toe rights can make one left?. We look at the glass these days that way. FULL.
I thank you
Firozali A. Mulla
Those who serve in the armed services should be given priority over those who see the UK as a meal ticket after paying the criminal gangs who specialize in human trafikking; but their lies the "rub" ; these gangs have strong ties with the drug cartels who in turn are protected by the soldiers in Afghanistan who were put their by the leaders who claim to serve the interests of Britain and USA.
Very messy indeed; but Joe Bloggs gets the rough end of the stick every time.
Back during the Falklands War, Private Eye ran a joke headline 'Kill an Argie and win a Metro'. Now, it would appear, reality has caught up with humour.
Maybe you should separate in your mind the government who sent the forces there, from the people who served? Just a thought.
I would think most people would be outraged at this idea that everyones equal but some are more equal.
What's next? A "fast track" NHS for the police? For children of MPs?
Will certain "social groups" get superior treatment because they are on a list?
The principle of the NHS is that NO ONE is "better" than anyone else in terms of their social status.
It should be about medical need and nothing else.