Chapter 3 - Health
                     
The tables in this section present the medical discharges for UK Regular Armed Forces personnel by Service, year and the principal cause leading to discharge for the last 5 years for which DASA have validated the data.

Medical discharges are the result of a number of specialists (medical, occupational, psychological, personnel, etc) coming to the conclusion, via a medical board, that an individual is suffering from a medical condition that pre-empts their continued service in the Armed Forces. Statistics based on these discharges do not represent measures of true morbidity or pathology. At best they indicate a minimum burden of ill-health in the Armed Forces. Furthermore, the number and diversity of processes involved with administering a medical discharge introduce a series of time lags, as well as impact on the quality of data recorded.

The information on cases was sourced from electronic personnel records and manually entered paper documents from medical boards. The primary purpose of these medical documents is to ensure the appropriate administration of each individual patient's discharge. Statistical analysis and reporting is a secondary function.

Medical discharges in the UK Armed Forces involve a series of processes, at times complex, which differ in each Service to meet their specific requirements. Due to these differences between the three Services, comparisons between the single Service statistics are invalid.

The International Classification of Diseases & Related Health Problems version 10 (ICD 10) was used to classify medical discharges with a primary cause leading to discharge.
Table 3.14 Medical Discharges for regular UK Army Personnel by principal cause code group,
                        numbers1, 2004 - 2008
During the 5-year period 2004-2008, musculoskeletal disorders and injuries were the most common cause of discharge in the Army with 3,109 discharges. This accounts for 65% of all cause coded medical discharges for the Army during the 5-year period. 602 (13%) medical discharges were for mental and behavioural disorders, and 203 (4%) were for Clinical and Laboratory findings (this category includes personnel medically discharged with less well-defined conditions and symptoms that do not readily fall into the other ICD-10 classifications).

The data in this table are not National Statistics because they have not been designated as such by the Ministry of Defence.
  2004   2005   2006   2007   2008  
All medical discharges 1 084   1 047   1 009   1 000   842  
All cause coded medical discharges 1 051   998   1 001   938   803  
   Infectious and parasitic diseases (A00 - B99) ~   7   ~   ~   7  
   Neoplasms (C00 - D48) 12   ~   12   ~   9  
   Blood disorders (D50 - D89) 5   ~   -   -   ~  
   Endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases (E00 - E90) 9   ~   7   8   ~  
   Mental and behavioural disorders (F00 - F99) 121   119   111   114   137  
   Nervous system diseases (G00 - G99) 33   41   37   55   26  
   Eye and adnexa diseases (H00 - H59) 12   8   12   14   6  
   Ear and mastoid process diseases (H60 - H95) 15   17   37   24   13  
   Circulatory system disorders (I00 - I99) 9   12   8   19   13  
   Respiratory system disorders (J00 - J99) 29   20   25   19   11  
   Digestive system disorders (K00 - K93) 14   12   11   12   14  
   Skin and subcutaneous tissue diseases (L00 - L99) 19   21   26   10   12  
   Musculoskeletal disorders (M00 - M99) and Injuries (S00 - T98) 721   676   629   596   487  
   Genitourinary system diseases (N00 - N99) 8   6   12   ~   ~  
   Pregnancy, Childbirth and the puerperium (O00 - O99) -   -   -   -   -  
   Congenital malformations (Q00 - Q99) 9   14   ~   -   ~  
   Clinical and laboratory findings (R00 - R99) 25   37   56   48   37  
   External causes of morbidity and mortality (V01 - Y98) -   -   -   -   -  
   Factors influencing health status (Z00 - Z99) ~   -   ~   9   17  
Other Medical Discharges for which data are not available2 33   49   8   62   39  
Source: DASA (Health Information)
1. ~ Indicates that small numbers have been suppressed in line with the DASA Health rounding policy.
2. Includes medical discharges for which no medical documents have been received by DASA