Veterans Affairs Committee on June 6th, 2013

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

The Galleries Project is another project designed to help people who are most likely to become homeless, isn't that so?

[Dave Rutter]

That's not a project I'm familiar with. I think that must be a Ministry of Defence project not immediately linked to the health provision we provide here to veterans. I'm unsighted on that, I'm afraid.

[Manon Perreault, NDP, Montcalm, QC]

That's fine.

Since I have some time left, I would like to speak about a new project designed to secure expertise within the veterans health system. Here in Canada, veterans are covered by the public system, but the federal government has decided to transfer the responsibility for the last veterans hospital to the province where it is located, of course. We are concerned that this expertise will be lost.

Can you tell us how you ensure that veterans caregivers, in your system, really have an expertise focused exclusively on veterans needs?

[Dave Rutter]

That's certainly an issue that has been ongoing since I came into this post five years or so back. I think there's a mixture in response to that, because clearly, a veteran's problem can be a problem that's experienced by anybody. It's not necessarily a veteran's problem, if I can put it that way.

There will be some issues around culture and maybe some specific issues around a veteran as a result of their service, whether that actually may be a physical or a mental injury. Within the NHS what we have done is we created, as part of our program, a series of armed forces networks within each of the 10 regions, again. These armed forces networks were led by local health authorities, and the networks brought together veterans. They brought together, more importantly, people within the health service who were also veterans themselves—many move on to new careers, etc—as well as reservists who work within the health services.

It was an opportunity to identify people who were within the system, who were veterans themselves or had a familiarity with the armed forces, and who were very willing and very keen to bring their skills and their knowledge to those networks.

Of course, by bringing that group of people together, it was a great way of informing other professionals and clinicians, particularly at that stage when we were creating the mental health teams. But also, with the other work that we've been doing more widely, it was a great way to actually inform and signpost and do those other things you would expect a network to do. That's on one level.

If you're also asking around the clinical skills and the social care skills in relation to veterans, again, it moves across to that. The number of reservists, NHS reservists, at one stage who were in Afghanistan, in Bastion, I think it was somewhere around 48% to 50% of the U.K. force out there. Again, it's the learning and the knowledge they take from their reservists' work within combat, within serving in Afghanistan, and their wide reservist experiences, that they are taking back into their own NHS hospitals, their trusts, their own medical environments, and obviously, that moves across to their colleagues as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Thank you very much.

We are over quite a bit.

Mr. Stoffer had a quick comment, and then I'm going to add the time to you, Mr. Hayes, at the end.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Sir, I wanted to say, because we'll be concluding soon, perhaps you could give Pippa Middleton my very best, if you don't mind.

Thank you.

[Dave Rutter]

I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Perhaps you could say hello to Pippa Middleton for me, if you don't mind. Thanks.

[Dave Rutter]

Okay. I'll bump into her down the road.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

If only you could pronounce her name correctly, you might do a little better on the international stage.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Anyway, thank you very much.

Mr. Hayes will have the last slot. As I said, we'll extend the time a bit to allow for this.

If you would, Mr. Hayes, please.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Hi, Dave. Good afternoon.

[Dave Rutter]

Hello.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

I want to speak a little bit about the appeal process that's available to veterans. In Canada we have an arm's-length, independent tribunal to appeal decisions made by Veterans Affairs Canada. Does the U.K. have a similar tribunal for appeal?

[Dave Rutter]

Not that I'm aware of.... I'm loath to go into detail in that area because that's really the Ministry of Defence and SPVA's role. I wouldn't like to misinform you on that. I do apologize.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, that's fair enough, but I'm going to keep on the same line of questions because maybe the next one you might have an answer to.

[Dave Rutter]

That's absolutely fine.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

In Canada, free legal representation is provided by our government through the Bureau of Pensions Advocates. Are you aware of what type of legal assistance is provided to U.K. veterans, and whether or not it's free of charge?

[Dave Rutter]

U.K. citizens, generally, are able to access legal aid here, which is free. Also, veterans, certainly if they have a pension appeal process to go through, will have been informed by the SPVA that they are able to receive assistance, legal and other, from the Royal British Legion, which I know provides that sort of assistance to individuals. That part is not statutory. It's part of the service charity function and the Royal British Legion continues to do that. They would help represent that individual in appeal cases.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned that one year after a veteran retires, they're contacted either by email or by phone simply to see how they're doing. I want to speak a little bit in terms of what services you might have available online for veterans, online programs and websites. What we have in Canada is fairly extensive, but I don't know where the U.K. is in terms of online services and whether veterans can go online and see everything that's available to them—all the associated costs and all the associated processes.

[Dave Rutter]

Certainly, that's where we're heading with the Royal British Legion, as part of the service that I described. At the moment, we're in a bit of a hybrid situation in which they're being informed, and in effect, emailed a letter that will signpost them to some of those key agencies: SPVA, Royal British Legion, statutory services, and others. The objective going forward...the Royal British Legion are redesigning their services so they will have an online one-stop shop for veteran services, where they can advise or refer to other services as appropriate. That would go down to the level of a Royal British Legion welfare officer visiting that individual in their home, if that's what's needed.

We also have the online mental health service, which is the big Whitehall service I referred to earlier on. We have commissioned that. We fund that. It allows veterans, their families, and those who are serving, to access that site where they can talk with others from that community, receive online one-to-one mental health counselling, etc. That's the other arm of that service we've been developing.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you.

I'll stop there, Mr. Chair. I do have another question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Greg Kerr]

Okay. Go ahead.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Here is my final question. You've been doing this for five years now, so I anticipate you're making a lot of changes. It seems like there's a lot of transitional things happening. Have you assessed what other countries are doing in terms of providing things to veterans? Specifically, have you had a good look at what Canada is doing? If you have, what one thing would you want to incorporate in the U.K. that Canada does very well?