MoD: More than 10k Royal Navy, Army and RAF personnel "not medically deployable" as Keir Starmer calls Ukraine

In a written parliamentary question, minister for veterans and people Al Carns revealed that across the various branches of the armed forces, 99,560 are medically fully deployable, with 14,350 limited deployability and 13,522 medically not deployable. The Royal Navy has 2,922 members medically not deployable , the army 6,879 and the Royal Air Force 3,721.

An MoD spokesperson said: “The vast majority of our Service Personnel – around 90 per cent – 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 which affect 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 and deployability status can be awarded on a temporary or permanent basis.

Deployable is defined as personnel who are able to deploy on operations. Some personnel may have medical limitations which restrict the type or location of operation they can be deployed on. MoD statistics from April 2024 showed 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 per cent, the RN/RM by 5 per cent and the RAF by 10 per cent. Overall, the UK armed forces were 5,440 personnel (1 per cent) below target.

Former armed forces minister James Heappey said he believes that a “good chunk” of the more than 10,000 members of the navy, army and air force who are medically unfit to be deployed are down to not having had a dental check-up. Mr Heappey, who was a Conservative MP before standing down in July, told Times Radio that some of the 10,000 personnel’s status would change if Britain was at war.

The army veteran said: “Firstly, 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.

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“Secondly, there is a reality about the nature of some of these injuries that mean that they couldn’t deploy to go on a discretionary operation today in peacetime, but if war was to come, then they would be absolutely able to go and fight because the needs of the nation would rather trump that rather discretionary take on their medical capacity.”

Mr Heappey said some armed forces personnel were needed to go to back office jobs, including in the National Cyber Force. He added: “Those would be the mitigations I would deploy if I was still the minister for the armed forces, all of which would be true. But that doesn’t escape the fact that the headline is very arresting and, of course, the real concern.”

Following details of prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, there has been speculation that the UK could be considering sending troops to Ukraine to help train its armed forces. Last week, defence secretary John Healey said it is a “critical period” for Ukraine and pledged that the UK would be “stepping up” help.