Armed Forces and veterans

Our community

The Armed Forces and Veterans (AF&V) community includes all those, who are currently serving in either the regular or reserve forces, veterans, the family of service personnel or veterans, or bereaved family members.

Veterans are defined as anyone, who has served for at least one day in HM Armed Forces (Regular or Reserve) or Merchant Naval Seafarers, who have deployed as part of a military operation.

Let us know if you are part of the AF&V community. You are entitled to priority access to NHS care for conditions associated with time serving in or supporting the Armed Forces (service-related).

Priority access is always subject to clinical need and doesn’t entitle you to jump ahead of someone with a higher clinical need - but if we don’t know that you are part of the AF&V community, we can’t make it happen!

Myth busters

• You are a veteran even if you "only did National Service".
• You are a veteran even if you "didn’t go anywhere".

It doesn’t matter when, how or where you served. It doesn’t matter how you left the services. If you served, you served.

• But we're divorced.

You are part of the AF&V community if your partner served, even if you separated or divorced later.

One person joins but the whole family serves.

Our commitment

The team at NHS Highland are very proud to have signed up to both the Armed Forces Covenant and the Defence Employer Recognition Scheme (ERS). We have been awarded ERS Gold and will continue to work hard to support our employees from the Armed Forces and Veterans community.

We are committed to becoming AF&V-aware. We aim to understand the challenges of service life and to remove the barriers to successfully accessing healthcare and employment.

Your Armed Forces Champion

The NHS Highland Armed Forces Champion is Jo McBain.  She is your dedicated point of contact for:

• guidance on how to use the Armed Forces Covenant when accessing services
• complaints about our services linked to the use of the Armed Forces Covenant
• feedback about our progress as an AF&V-aware organisation

She can be contacted at:

email nhsh.armedforceschampion@nhs.scot