Veteran Friendly Accreditation

The Veteran Friendly Accreditation scheme (by the Royal College of GPs and NHS England) provides an opportunity to improve health outcomes for veterans and benefit individual GP practices. It enables practices to easily identify, understand and support veterans and, where appropriate, refer them to dedicated healthcare services.

The Arden & GEM team (all of whom are veterans) support Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and individual practices through the accreditation scheme, raising awareness of specific care pathways and providing access to a range of free resources. Achieving accreditation can make a big difference to the lives of veterans within your population and is a simple process taking around 20 minutes. Over 3,000 GP practices in England are already accredited and receiving support which includes free online training, coding guidance and advice on referrals.

We can support your GP practice or PCN to achieve Veteran Friendly Accreditation, enabling you to better serve your population while also delivering benefits for your practice. Outcomes include:

• Research shows that becoming accredited benefits both veterans and practice staff, with veterans getting access to the right support for a better patient experience and improved outcomes
• Access to dedicated services provides the potential for practices to save time through reduced repeat appointments
• Veteran Friendly Accreditation also sends a strong signal to veteran patients that you are dedicated to supporting them, making it more likely that they will feel comfortable to seek help when they need it
• Accreditation can also be used to demonstrate evidence of meeting CQC obligations and the legal requirements of the Armed Forces Covenant, which requires that no veteran should face disadvantages in accessing health services and should receive priority care for military attributable conditions, subject to clinical need.
  
  

Armed Forces health stakeholder brief - Spring 2024