Mark was shown around Trywhitt House by the Director of Operations, Mr Garrett Taylor, where he had a chance to talk to a number of veterans who had been affected by their time in service, including one ex-Senior NCO who had undertaken nine tours of duty in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’.
In his job as Veterans Minister at the MOD, Mark has been working to try and provide better mental health support both for serving personnel and also to veterans who have left the service. He recently held a meeting in the Ministry of Defence with Health Minister Dan Poulter, Andrew Cameron, the Chief Executive of Combat Stress and other experts in the field, to see how provision for ex-servicemen in this area could be improved.
Commenting on his recent visit to Tyrwhitt House Mark Francois said:
“Combat Stress is a marvellous charity who do a great deal of good work to help those servicemen, and particularly veterans, who carry wounds which are mental rather than physical. The Ministry of Defence has recently allocated some seven million pounds to help improve mental health provision but there is still more that we need to do and I was pleased to have an opportunity to visit Combat Stress to discuss this with some of their experts in the field. Our servicemen and women do so much to help keep us safe and we need to try even harder to make sure that we repay the debt we owe.”