More than 10,000 UK Armed Forces members deemed ‘medically undeployable’

Over 10,000 people in Britain’s Armed Forces are “not medically deployable”, figures from the Ministry of Defence show.

In total, 99,560 are medically fully deployable, 14,350 have limited deployability and 13,522 are medically not deployable. The Royal Navy has 2,922 members medically not deployable, the Army 6,879 and the Royal Air Force 3,721.

Defence Minister Al Carns revealed the figures in response to a written parliamentary question, with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) stressing the majority of people in the Army are deployable.

An MoD spokesperson said: “The vast majority of our Service Personnel – around 90% – are deployable at any point, with most of the remaining members of our Armed Forces employed in wider military roles.

“We are committed to providing world-class medical treatment to ensure personnel can return to duty where possible, or to support their transition to civilian life.”

Service personnel with medical conditions or fitness issues affecting their ability to perform their duties will generally be referred to a medical board for a medical examination and review of their medical grading.

They may be downgraded to allow for treatment, recovery and rehabilitation. Deployability status can be awarded on either a temporary or permanent basis.

Deployable is defined as personnel who are able to deploy on operations. Some personnel may be limited for medical reasons, restricting the type or location of operation they can be sent to.

MoD statistics from April this year show the Army fell below its target size for the first time since it was set, meaning all three service branches are currently below target: the Army by 1%, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines by 5% and the RAF by 10%.

Overall, Britain’s Armed Forces were 5,440 personnel (1%) below target, despite recent efforts to fill the ranks.

Former Armed Forces Minister, James Heappey, told Times Radio on Tuesday (December 24) that a lack of dental check-ups are likely responsible for a number of the personnel unable to be deployed.

He said: “I’ll bet you that a big chunk of the non-deployable, medically downgraded people are downgraded for dental reasons.

“And what that tends to mean is that they’ve not had a dental check-up in the last six months, and so they are automatically declared dentally unfit, and therefore not fully deployable.”

Mr Heappey added if war were to come they would be able to go and fight because the needs of the country would trump their medical capacity.

He said the British Army probably needs to regrow to around 85,000, with “another few thousand people each” for the Royal Navy and RAF.

Ex-Security Minister Tom Tugendhat told Times Radio he also thought the Army needed to increase in size. Mr Tugendhat said: “The reality is that we have too few men and women in our Armed Forces. I’ve been calling for a massive increase for a long time.”

News of the deployability of military personnel comes after recent speculation London could be mulling sending troops to Ukraine to help train the war-torn country’s own armed forces.

It came after details of a call between Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky. British Defence Secretary John Healey said last week now marks a “critical period” for Ukraine and pledged the UK would be “stepping up” its help.

Mr Heappey agreed with Mr Carns that if Britain went to war with Russia, then the British Army could be destroyed within six months of conflict breaking out.

The former Conservative MP said the MoD needed to develop plans for how Britain could mobilise and train volunteers, the so-called second and third echelon, to serve alongside the standing British Army if war broke out.