Mental health support for veterans has been a consistent political commitment across successive governments. The NHS Constitution includes a commitment that veterans will receive priority treatment for conditions related to their service. The Office for Veterans’ Affairs, established in 2019, coordinates cross-government provision. A network of NHS Veterans’ Mental Health services operates across England. And yet veterans’ charities, service leaver welfare organisations, and NHS data consistently show a gap between provision and need.
The Population and the Prevalence
There are approximately 2.2 million veterans in England, ranging from World War II veterans to those who left service in the past year. Prevalence of mental health conditions is higher among veterans than in the general population, though the picture is complex. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affects approximately 4-6% of veterans in most epidemiological studies, compared to approximately 4% of the general population. Alcohol use disorder is approximately twice as prevalent among veterans. Depression and anxiety rates are broadly similar to the general population, but are more likely to be associated with combat exposure and service-related injury.
Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan — the most recent major combat deployments — have higher rates of mental health conditions than veterans of other eras, a finding consistent with research on high-tempo combat deployment. This cohort is now in their 30s and 40s and represents the highest current service demand.
The NHS Veterans’ Mental Health Services
NHS England funds a network of Veterans’ Mental Health services across England: the Transition, Intervention and Liaison (TIL) service for early intervention; the Complex Treatment Service (CTS) for veterans with moderate-to-severe conditions; and High Intensity Service (HIS) for veterans at risk of crisis or hospitalisation. The services are commissioned by integrated care boards, with NHS England providing national oversight and some direct funding.
Waiting time data for these services, obtained by Exposed News through FOI requests to 42 integrated care boards (one did not respond), shows that average waiting times for CTS — the most commonly needed specialist service — range from 6 weeks to over 12 months, with a national average of approximately 22 weeks. Several integrated care systems in the Midlands and North of England had waiting times exceeding 40 weeks at the time of the requests.
Funding Levels
NHS England’s published veterans’ mental health service budget for 2024/25 was approximately £47 million. This covers the full range of veterans’ mental health provision in England. The Veterans’ Commissioner for England, in her 2024 annual report, noted that the £47 million figure represented “significant under-investment relative to the scale of need” and called for at minimum a doubling of the veterans’ mental health budget, citing comparable provision in Australia and Canada.
The Office for Veterans’ Affairs publishes an annual Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan, which includes commitments on mental health access. The 2024/25 plan committed to “reducing waiting times and increasing capacity in Veterans’ Mental Health services.” It did not include specific targets or funding commitments attached to this ambition — a pattern consistent with previous action plans, which have been criticised for aspirational language without measurable commitments.
What Veterans’ Charities Report
Combat Stress, the leading veterans’ mental health charity, reported in 2025 that its clinical services had filled a significant proportion of the gap in NHS provision — meaning veterans who could not access NHS services were turning to charitable provision, often with wait times of their own and with referral complexity that imposed additional barriers. The reliance on charitable provision to fill a statutory gap is a known structural problem; it creates geographic inequity (charities are unevenly distributed) and dependency on fundraising cycles rather than stable public funding.
The Veterans’ Commissioner’s 2024 report concluded: “The commitment to world-leading mental health support for veterans is a political aspiration that has not been matched with the operational framework, funding certainty, or accountability mechanisms needed to make it a reality for the people who need it.”