An evaluation of the veteran friendly practice accreditation programme

Background The Royal College of General Practitioners Veteran Friendly Practice Accreditation Programme launched in 2019, aiming to allow practices to better identify, treat and refer veterans, where appropriate, to dedicated NHS services.

Aim Evaluate the effectiveness of the accreditation programme, focusing on benefits for the veteran, the practice and the delivery of the programme itself.

Design & setting The study evaluated the views of Veteran Friendly Accredited GP Practices across England.

Method Mixed-methods study collecting data via an online survey from 232 accredited Primary Healthcare (PHC) staff and 15 semi-structured interviews with PHC Veteran Leads. Interviews were analysed using modified Grounded Theory.

Results 99% (N=228) of respondents would recommend the programme, 77% (N=124) reported improved awareness and 84% (N=193) a better understanding of veteran’s needs. 72% (N=166) identified benefits for veterans who were engaging more with PHC but participants felt more time was needed, largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, to fully assess the impact of the programme on help-seeking behaviour. Challenges included identifying veterans already registered, promoting the accreditation process and ensuring all PHC staff were kept up to date with veteran issues.

Conclusions The programme has increased signposting to veteran specific services and greater understanding of the NHS priority referral criteria for veterans. Recording of veteran status has improved and there was evidence of a better medical record coding system in PHC practices. These findings add to the limited empirical evidence exploring veteran engagement in PHC and demonstrate how accreditation results in better treatment and identification of veterans.