To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the potential numbers of (a) serving and (b) veteran services personnel who (i) are eligible for and (ii) have received priority for treatment in the NHS in each of the last three years. (170210)

The recent extension of long-standing arrangements for priority treatment for war pensioners to all veterans, for service-related conditions, does not affect the current arrangements for serving military personnel to get accelerated access to the national health service in certain circumstances.

There are about 4.8 million veterans. Most veterans with service-related conditions are already receiving any health care that they need for those conditions, sometimes with priority access as war pensioners. Our view is that the extension of the priority treatment arrangements will be relevant to only a small number of veterans.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he has made of the effects on the (a) 10 primary care trusts with the highest concentrations of serving and veteran service personnel and (b) the NHS of the decision to give priority treatment to serving and veteran service personnel. (170213)

Information is not available about which primary care trusts (PCTs) have the highest concentration of veterans. The extension of priority treatment to all veterans will not affect serving military personnel, as their arrangements for accelerated access to the national health service are not changing. As with the current arrangements for priority treatment for war pensioners, decisions about priority treatment for all veterans will be made by the relevant clinicians, and will be subject to clinical need. There should be no significant additional cost: the policy is about prioritisation of future referrals.