Chapter 3 - Health
                                 
This section provides the numbers of fatalities and casualties involving personnel deployed on operations. In agreement with Under Secretary of State for Defence, DASA are responsible for reporting on all medium scale operations since 2001. Data on operations smaller than medium-scale are not centrally compiled. The operations reported on below reflect those operations for which data have been published on the MOD website. The tables present the numbers of fatalities and casualties since reporting began in 2001 up until end of 2008. The data include Naval Service, Army (including Gurkhas), RAF, MOD Civilians and Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) personnel.

The operations reported on below reflect those operations for which data have been published on the MOD website, where further information on field hospital admissions and aero-medical evacuations is also available for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq:

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/OperationsInIraqBritishCasualties.htm
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/OperationsInAfghanistanBritishCasualties.htm
Table 3.9 Number of UK Armed Forces and Civilian Operational Casualties1,2,3
Notification of Casualty (or NOTICAS) is the name for the formalised system of reporting casualties within the UK Armed Forces. The NOTICAS reports raised for casualties contain information on how seriously medical staff in theatre judge their condition to be. They are not strictly medical categories but are designed to give an indication of the severity of the illness to inform what the individual's next of kin are told. Very seriously injured and seriously injured are the two most serious categories into which personnel can be classified:

Very Seriously Ill/Injured/Wounded or VSI - The illness or injury is of such severity that life is imminently endangered.
Seriously Ill/Injured/Wounded or SI - The patient's condition is of such severity that there is cause for immediate concern, but there is no imminent danger to life.

The VSI and SI categories are defined by Joint Casualty & Compassionate Policy & Procedures. The figures provided below exclude those individuals categorised as VSI or SI whose condition was identified to be caused by illness. Validated NOTICAS data for casualties in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Balkans are held from January 2001 onwards. In agreement with the Under Secretary of State for Defence, operational casualty data prior to 2001 have not been examined.

The data in this table are not National Statistics because they have not been designated as such by the Ministry of Defence. As only VSI and SI casualties are reported, the figures do not give a comprehensive picture of all casualties on Operations.
  2001 4 2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008
Afghanistan Total -   1   1   6   2   31   63   65
  Very Seriously Injured or Wounded (VSI)2,3 -   1   -   3   2   18   23   27
  Seriously Injured or Wounded (SI)2,3 -   -   1   3   -   13   40   38
Iraq Total -   -   46   45   20   32   69   9
  Very Seriously Injured or Wounded (VSI)2,3 -   -   14   14   5   11   24   5
  Seriously Injured or Wounded (SI)2,3 -   -   32   31   15   21   45   4
Balkans5 Total 6   2   3   2   -   2   2   -
  Very Seriously Injured or Wounded (VSI)2,3 2   2   -   -   -   -   -   -
  Seriously Injured or Wounded (SI)2,3 4   -   3   2   -   2   2   -
Source: DASA (Health Information)
1.  Civilians are not included in the figures prior to 01/01/2006.
2.  The VSI and SI injury data includes records classified as 'Other Causes'. This classification is used when there is insufficient information to attribute a      casualty to injury or natural cause.
3.  The casualty figures provided exclude those individuals categorised as VSI or SI whose condition was identified to be caused by illness.
4.  2001 data for Afghanistan starts at 7 October.
5.  The Balkans covers operational casualties in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Macedonia.