For the second year running I had the privilege of representing Halton at the Military Veterans & Their Families’ Wellbeing Symposium.
It was an honour to be invited alongside Military Veterans, delegates from the Royal British Legion, Combat Stress, Help the Heroes, serving armed forces representatives and NHS representatives.
I learned a lot again this year from the wide variety of speakers and the message was clear, that more must be done to push the positives of ex service people and how their skills can be highly adaptable to ‘civvy street’. More must also be done to try to encourage Military Veterans to tell their GPs that they have served, as this enables a greater depth of research to be done into a variety of illnesses that may be more prevalent in people that have served.
The work the NHS has been doing to tailor specialised services sounds very encouraging and is being led by a GP who served.
It was great to bump into Gavin Jones who runs The Hub at the Halton Stadium, a once a month drop in centre for Military Veterans.
Finally thanks to John Goulding, a Widnes Military Veteran who is one of the organisers of the Symposium and the research work that is ongoing regarding the well being of our ex service people and their families.
