Helping care providers to offer appropriate support for the thousands of veterans living in care homes across England
Evaluating the Veteran Friendly Framework to raise standards for veterans living in care homes across the UK.
The challenge
Many veterans feel a loss of belonging after leaving the military, leading to loneliness and social isolation. This sense of disconnection can increase the risk of veterans facing poor mental and physical health.
The Veteran Friendly Framework
The Veteran Friendly Framework (VFF), launched in October 2023, aims to tackle loneliness and isolation, and deliver improved health and wellbeing outcomes for over 25,000 veterans living in care homes across England. It has been designed to support the practical, emotional and social needs of the Armed Forces community by providing care homes with resources to assess and improve their offer.
Undertaking the Framework shows a care homes commitment to the recognition of service life and creates an opportunity for residents and staff to access veteran specific services.
Care providers need to meet eight standards to complete their accreditation. These include provisions to identify the wellbeing needs of veterans and their partners by ensuring that Armed Forces status is included in care planning; addressing social isolation; and providing signposting to local statutory and charitable support services.
The VFF is a two-year collaboration between Royal Star & Garter, the Royal British Legion and the NHS Veterans Covenant Healthcare Alliance (VCHA) with funding support from the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust. There are around 15,000 care homes in England, but only 20 currently offer specialist support to those who served in the Armed Forces and their partners.
Evaluating the VFF
In order to ensure the future development of the VFF, its wider policy and practice implications, we have been asked to conduct the independent evaluation.
Our evaluation will use a range of quantitative and qualitative approaches to understand the delivery, impact, and value of the VFF. It will engage care home managers, staff, veterans and families in understanding the changes the VFF has helped create.
What do we hope the evaluation will achieve?
Evidence of how the VFF has been adopted, what works most effectively, and what support it helps unlock for the Armed Forces community living in care homes, will help shape more effective services in the future. It is also hoped that the evaluation will show how the VFF can help raise standards for everyone living in care homes across the UK.
Our project partners
The evaluation is being funded by Office of Veterans’ Affairs (OVA), Royal British Legion (RBL) and Royal Star & Garter (RSG). We were selected following an open competitive tendering process with a selection panel including representatives from RBL, RSG, OVA, NHS England and DHSC.
