The MOD has 15 Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMHs) in the UK (with additional satellite centres in Germany, Cyprus and Gibraltar), which have since 2004 provided out-patient mental healthcare for members of the armed forces. Responsibility for their individual management is shared between the single service commands, and it is not possible to separate out costs from overall unit medical budgets. Each service funds its respective DCMHs differently, with funding provision coming from a number of areas. Due to the number of budgets to which costs would be attributable, any detailed study of DCMH finances would incur disproportionate costs.
(2) how many service personnel have been referred to a military psychiatrist in each of the last 10 years.
All military psychiatrists are trained as general psychiatrists. There are currently 15 uniformed consultant psychiatrists working for the Defence Medical Services (DMS), as well as 13 civilian consultant psychiatrists, many of whom are former military members of the DMS. They work in the military Departments of Community Mental Health (DCMH), which provide out-patient mental health care for members of the armed forces. I will place a copy of the specific location of each consultant in the Library.
Military psychiatrists Civilian psychiatrists Total Aldershot 1 1.5 2.5 RAF Brize Norton 1 1 2 Catterick 2 1 3 Colchester 1 0 1 RAF Cranwell 1 0 1 Donnington 1 1 2 RAF Kinloss 1 0 1 RAF Leuchars 0.5 0 0.5 RAF Marham 1 0 1 Northern Ireland 0.5 0 0.5 Plymouth 0 3 3 Portsmouth 0 2.5 2.5 Tidworth 1 1 2 Woolwich 1 0 1 Rhine (Germany) 1 0 1 Hohne (Germany) 0 1 1 Paderborn (Germany) 0 1 1 Gutersloh (Germany) 1 0 1 Other1 1 0 1 Total 15 13 28 1 “Other” includes personnel in staff posts. Note: Two individuals work part-time at two separate DCMHs. These are shown as “0.5” at each location.
Service personnel who have a concern about their mental health will normally be referred in the first instance for assessment and/or treatment at one of the DCMHs, which are manned by multi-disciplinary teams of consultant psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, community mental health nurses and mental health social workers.
Since July 2007 the Defence Analytical Services and Advice (DASA) organisation has reported on the psychiatric morbidity of the UK armed forces. Quarterly reports for the whole of 2007 and 2008 are available to view both in the Library of the House and on the DASA website at the following link:
www.dasa.mod.uk
Equivalent verified data prior to 2007 are not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
The morbidity report shows numbers of new attendances at DCMHs or at the MOD’s in-patient contractor during each quarter and the results of the initial mental health assessment. However, the data collected do not indicate whether an individual was seen by a military psychiatrist or by another qualified member of the mental health team.