VETERANS AND RESERVES
MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMME (VRMHP)
The Medical Assessment Programme (MAP) – a veteran’s mental health service - is moving from London to the Department of Community Mental Health Chilwell, Nottingham and has been renamed the Veterans and Reserves Mental Health Programme (VRMHP).
Moving the service to Chilwell brings closer links with the military mental health team based at there and the co-location with the Reserves Mental Health Programme brings shared expertise.
The relocation makes access to this service easier and more convenient to the majority of service users.
Bringing the veterans service to Chilwell will ensure the mental health service is maintained and integrated within a military mental health environment and provides for the assessing clinician an appropriate support team. By providing the service in a familiar military setting it will encourage those in need to be less deterred by issues of stigma.
The standard of service will remain the same; users will receive a full psychiatric assessment completed by a consultant psychiatrist, this assessment will then be forwarded to the service user’s GP and local clinical team with advice on further treatment and care. Referral to the VRMHP should be from the GP or the veteran’s clinical team, however self referrals will be accepted.
Surgeon Captain John Sharpley, Defence Consultant Advisor in Psychiatry said:
“Bringing the Veterans’ mental health programme (formerly known as the MAP) to Chilwell and co-locating it with the Reserves Mental Health Programme will provide greater access to military mental health facilities with the Department of Community Mental Health based there.
The Veterans and Reserves Mental Health Programme will have better access to a consultant psychiatrist, who is supported by military mental health nurses. Veterans will continue to be seen by a consultant psychiatrist who will undertake a full mental health assessment and pass on recommendations to the veteran’s GP. The majority of veterans using the Service come from the North and Midlands making Chilwell an ideal location.”
The MAP (Medical Assessment Programme as it was known), was a programme set up in the 1990s to investigate both physical and psychological symptoms manifesting in veterans of the first Gulf Conflict. The majority of cases seen by the MAP were mental health related and the service evolved into a mental health assessment programme. The VRMHP is solely mental health focussed but like the MAP is open to UK military veterans that have left regular military service since 1982 and are experiencing mental health challenges as a result of Service. Reservists mobilised since 2003 also remain eligible to seek assistance from the VRMHP.
The new VRMHP will continue to provide service users travelling expenses and where required overnight accommodation close to DCMH Chilwell.
For more information about the Veterans and Reserves Mental Health Programme go to:
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/AboutDefence/WhatWeDo/HealthandSafety/GulfVeteransIllnesses/TheMedicalAssessmentProgramme.htm
Or for referrals:
[1] Of the previous 410 patients 225 had accessed the service from North of London (UK Mainland), a further 45 had required air transport
Veterans and Reserves Mental Health Programme (formerly Medical Assessment Programme)
DCMH Chilwell
Chetwynd Barracks
Chilwell
Nottingham
NG9 5HA
Tel 0800 032 6258 (freephone)
Fax 0115 957 4451
Email APHCSEDCMHCHL-VRMHP@mod.uk
The move of the Medical Assessment Programme was announced by Written Ministerial Statement 07 March 2012.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201212/cmhansrd/cm120307/wmstext/120307m0001.htm
For more information on veterans mental health services in your area please go to:
http://www.armedforceshealthpartnership.org.uk/links and follow “Regional Leads Contact List” under Department of Health Armed Forces Network and under Government Departments & Agencies individual mental health services are listed.