asked Her Majesty's Government:

What processes are in place for the Ministry of Defence to learn from the experience of the St John and Red Cross Defence Medical Welfare Service in providing support to injured service personnel, in particular their support for those injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. [HL2789]

Formal meetings between the Defence Medical Welfare Service (DMWS) and MoD are held four times a year. The main purpose for these meetings is to monitor the contract which is in place between the MoD and DMWS. However these meetings also offer the opportunity for issues to be raised by both organisations and there is also close liaison in between meetings.

DMWS staffs are firmly embedded in all deployed field hospitals and are the primary welfare contact for the patients in those units. The DMWS is also contracted to provide welfare services to service personnel in hospitals in the UK, Germany and Cyprus. Welfare is also an integral part of a commanding officer's (CO) responsibility to those under their command, both staff and patients, and as such COs have a vested interest in maintaining close contact with their DMWS staff.

COs of field hospitals are invited to contribute to the contract monitoring process and further have the opportunity to reflect issues expressed by and with respect to the DMWS in their post-operational reports, all of which contribute to lessons learned from operational deployments. Additionally the COs of the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, Ministry of Defence Hospital Units and representatives from the chains of command from Germany and Cyprus are invited to attend one of the quarterly meetings each year.