Medical Discharges

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. Following the last UKDS publication of medical discharges there were some Reservists identified in the data. These have since been removed and some figures have been revised.

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 principal cause leading to discharge. Some cause code groups have been further broken down following public interest in specific principal conditions that have led to medical discharge.

Medical Discharge statistics for the calendar year 2010 will be available from 15 April 2011 although will not be updated until the publication of UKDS 2011, released in September 2011.