COVENANT
IVF treatments, but local commissioners often set more restrictive eligibility criteria or restrict numbers of treatments available. But for IVF it may be that the Covenant can help in some cases.
Maybe Although local variations are generally outside the scope of the Covenant, NHS England recognises that as IVF is provided to couples, this lack of consistency potentially disadvantages serving personnel who might be at the same unit but have different entitlement to IVF dependent upon the location of their
partner.Asaresult, they specially commission IVF services for serving Armed Forces personnel to ensure they have the same access to NHS treatment wherever they are based in England. There is still other eligibility criteria that must be met but this has improved the opportunity for many couples to have IVF treatment on the NHS.
Most importantly,for all families the Covenant has encouraged NHS England to establish an excellent working relationship with the RAF FF.Whenever afamily approaches us with aCovenant- related health issue, NHS England team will liaise with the relevant local health trusts to facilitate asolution. Whilst they cannot resolve all issues the NHS England team work hard to support RAF families and make an invaluable contribution to raising awareness of the Covenant across the NHS.
What can you do to help?
The Covenant is there to support personnel and their families but equally important are the simple steps that
families can take to help themselves. One of the most important things for families who are due to be posted is to notify their local GP,health visitor,dentist and other services of their individual circumstancesassoon as possible. In many cases proactively informing these services before amove will ensure medical records are transferred and enable the continuity of any care and support that family members receive. Asking for copies of your medical records to take with you may avoid any delay arising from the transfer of records. In the case of dental treatment, actively notifying your dentist that you have moved when you have secured adentist elsewhere, will ensure they are able to take on another patient more quickly in your place, who may also be an armed forces family.
Dr Jonathan Leach, NHS GP,ex-military GP and retired Colonel and Chair NHS England Armed Forces and their Families Clinical Reference Group advises: “Service families often have additional pressures on family life and may be more vulnerable as aresult. These pressures can include stress around deployment, extended and repeated periods of separation from spouses and partners, social isolation from family and friends and additional and sudden caring responsibilities. To help ensure you are getting the right care and support from your GP and other parts of the NHS, tell your GP that you are a member of amilitary family and this can then be recorded in your patient record. Youcan do this when you register with asurgery or if you are registered, just tell your GP or the practice manager. This will help to ensure that you are not disadvantaged by losing your place on hospital waiting lists when you move.”
For more information about any health and covenant related matter get in touch with us.
Useful links: NHS England
nhs.uk/NHSENGLAND/Pages/ NHSEngland.aspx
Northern Ireland
online.hscni.net/
Scotland
scot.nhs.uk// Wales
wales.nhs.uk/
NHS Choices Armed Forces information pages
nhs.uk/NHSEngland/ Militaryhealthcare/veterans-families- reservists/Pages/
family.aspx
NHS Constitution
gov.uk/government/publications/ the-nhs-constitution-for-england/the- nhs-constitution-for-england
NHS England Armed Forces Commissioning policies
england.nhs.uk/commissioning/ policies/ssp/
The Armed Forces Covenant website has links to arange of further information on health matters:
armedforcescovenant.gov.uk/
armedforcescovenant.gov.uk/ support-and-advice/families/
raf-ff.org.uk
Winter 2017
Envoy 41
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