There are 2.2 million Armed Forces veterans in England. That’s similar to the number of people living with cancer (Macmillan Cancer Support, 2021). Yet, despite the fact that veterans sometimes have different healthcare needs, around half of GP practices do not know how many veteran patients they have — simply because they are not aware of the process to capture this information. 

The Royal College of General Practitioners’ (RCGP) veteran friendly GP practice accreditation scheme gives GP practices the training, information and resources to identify and support their veteran patients. It starts with asking, ‘have you served?’.