The research project will map health and social care service usage by ex-service personnel across the UK, creating a unified dataset to inform future policy decisions.

To allow statutory and charity services to consider whether the three million veterans living in the UK need specialist health and social care support requires the development of a unified evidence-base. This project builds on the work of Northumbria University’s Northern Hub for Veterans and Military Families Research to produce a map of veterans and their families’ welfare needs from across the UK and ensure that policy makers can access a nationwide dataset of veteran service usage in an easily accessible format.

By examining how the veteran population as a whole use health and social care services, data can better inform policy made for veterans by charities, local and national government, and the NHS.