Virendra Sharma – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Ministry of Defence

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Virendra Sharma on 2016-02-23.

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what his Department’s wellness strategy is.

Mark Lancaster

A new Health and Wellbeing Strategy for all Ministry of Defence (MOD) employees was published in mid-2015 and is designed to provide guidance to the Chain of Command and civilian line managers on how to manage the health needs of their people.

The aim is to maximise the number of people fit to work, managing people back to work after a period of sickness, so that they are fit and able to meet the requirements of Defence outputs, including operational effectiveness.

The strategy applies to all Defence People and not just Service personnel for whom maintaining health, wellbeing and fitness is a major contributor to the moral and physical components of fighting power. Although there are differences in the Terms and Conditions of Service and requirements placed on civilian and military workforces, all people working in Defence have a role to play in contributing to Defence outputs.

The Health and Wellbeing Strategy has four pillars: Lifestyle, Injury prevention, Preventative health and, Mental health. It is a through-life process that sets the conditions to allow people to Join, Train, Work, Live and Leave well.