Women Veterans: Barriers to Accessing Specific Services

Military Veterans’ Service Pennine Care, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust

Starting point

Research and data shows that many women veterans don’t access or don’t remain engaged with mental health services, to the detriment of the severity and longevity of their mental health.

Research (largely conducted in the US) suggests that when people are retained in services beyond their initial appointment, this will have a positive impact on the severity and longevity of their mental health.

The population/group

The project aimed to increase the following, by March 2024:

the number of referrals of women into NW veterans' services, from 5% to 11%
the number of women veterans who remain engaged with mental health services.

It also aimed to:

reduce ‘did not attend’ (DNA) rates
maintain supportive relationships (for sustained mental wellbeing) for veterans, reducing the longevity and severity of their conditions.

Finally, this work aimed to:

build on designing and providing a new women-specific pathways within veteran's specialist services.

Women military veterans.

The project team

Their dedicated project team includes:

a lead psychologist
a specialist psychotherapist
a data lead
an operations manager
the recruitment of a volunteer research assistant.

How they worked with the community and other stakeholders

The project team conducted thematic analysis of current data within veteran-specific services. They compared this with local population data and local population mental health data.

A systematic review of current literature and research related to women veterans, access to services, barriers to access, and service-attributable mental health themes in the women veteran's cohort

The project team established women veterans’ focus groups, after working to understand how women veterans would like to engage with this work. For this, they used themes from the Office for Veterans’ Affairs and Veterans UK Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan: 2022 to 2024.

Driver diagram

Their primary drivers related to women veterans, engagement and services/pathways.

Thinking collaboratively led to five secondary drivers to help them achieve outcomes that fit their aim

Ideas they are testing

Understand how many women access services, now and in the past, and what their needs are.
Review data for DNAs and drop outs.
Identify barriers and themes reported in research for women veterans accessing mental health support.
Plan events, themes and carry out with research assistant volunteer.
Co-produce a women's specific pathway.

Successes and achievements

Establishing the project team.
Stakeholder involvement:
- national engagement with key research teams and providers of services to support recruitment into focus groups and learning from similar projects across the geography.
Review and analysis:
- systematic review has been completed
- thematic analysis of 12 years of psychological dataset is underway.

What next?

The team will:

Apply for NHS Research Ethics Committee approval, to take this forward as a research proposal.
Undertake women veteran focus groups.