Chapter 3 - Health
       
This section provides statistical information on the number of Armed Forces personnel who as a result of an injury sustained whilst deployed on Operation HERRICK (Afghanistan) or Operation TELIC (Iraq) have suffered a traumatic or surgical amputation. An amputee is defined as live UK Armed Forces Service personnel who have an injury coded in the Joint Theatre Trauma Register (JTTR) as amputation (traumatic), partial or complete, for either upper or lower limbs using the Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS) Dictionary 2005 (Military Edition), and live UK Armed Forces Service personnel who had a surgical amputation performed either at the field hospital or at a UK hospital (the majority of these will be at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine). A traumatic or surgical amputation can range from the loss of part of a finger or toe up to the loss of entire limbs. Live personnel are defined as those being discharged from hospital after receiving treatment for the injuries that resulted in an amputation(s).
 
Further information can be found in the Quarterly Op TELIC and Op HERRICK Amputation Statistics reports which are published on the DASA website.
 
Table 3.12 Number of UK Armed Forces with amputations1
The table below presents the number of UK Service personnel who have sustained a partial or complete limb amputation as a result of injuries in Afghanistan and Iraq from when centrally held data were first collected on 1 April 2006 up until the end of 2010. The data include Naval Service personnel, Army personnel including those from the Gibraltar Regiment, RAF personnel and Reservist personnel. Civilians and other nations Service personnel have been excluded.

The data in this table are not National Statistics because they have not been designated as such by the Ministry of Defence.
 
Date of Amputation2 Afghanistan   Iraq
All 20063 7   6
Q2-2006 ~   ~
Q3-2006 ~   ~
Q4-2006 ~   ~
All 2007 13 r 10
Q1-2007 ~ r ~
Q2-2007 5   ~
Q3-2007 ~   ~
Q4-2007 ~   ~
All 2008 30   ~
Q1-2008 6   -
Q2-2008 ~   -
Q3-2008 ~   ~
Q4-2008 15   -
All 2009 55   ~r
Q1-2009 ~   -
Q2-2009 ~   ~r
Q3-2009 22   -
Q4-2009 24   -
All 2010 79   ~
Q1-2010 20   -
Q2-2010 20   ~
Q3-2010 20   -
Q4-2010 19   -
 
Source: DASA (Health Information)
 
1. These data sources are live systems that are constantly being updated. This means that occasionally figures can change, any amendments made since the last release have been indicated by an 'r'.
2. For each year presented, Q1 refers to 1 January - 31 March, Q2 refers to 1 April - 30 June, Q3 refers to 1 July - 30 September and Q4 refers to 1 October - 31 December.
3. No figures for Q1-2006 are presented as centrally held data were first collected on 1 April 2006.
All numbers fewer than five have been suppressed and presented as '~'. Where there is only one number in a column that is fewer than five, the next smallest number (or numbers where there are tied values) has also been suppressed so that numbers cannot simply be derived from totals.