Rehabilitation spend.

[Al R]

Interesting comment on Army (purple?) and Help for Heroes spend.

Help for Heroes and British Army 'waste millions on empty recovery centres' - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11897898/Help-for-Heroes-and-British-Army-waste-millions-on-empty-recovery-centres.html)

[Heathrow Harry]

big spread in the Times as well - basically the MoD has no idea of how many people need/needed rehabilitation, the MoD and Hope for Heroes had quite different ideas about what to use the money for, there was tremendous mission creep, cost overruns on a vast scale, no-one wanted to cross such an emotive charity, no-one will now answer any questions................

Sound familiar????

[Whenurhappy]

At least, for once, there's over capacity and not a chronic shortfall.

[smujsmith]

Perhaps many of our former comrades now living rough etc could benefit from the spare capacity. I'm sure the rehabilitation side of it would include mental and social in their remit. It's disgraceful that this government seem to have welcomed many of these people back from Afghanistan etc, sacked them and turned their backs on them. Some military covenant, but then, the stupidity of believing MPs could have been foreseen.

Smudge

[Courtney Mil]

I agree, Smuj. Time to go out and find some of the deserving people that we've all been paying into HfH for all these years. These guys don't just have to have missing limbs to be heroes or to be in need. If there is unused space and heroes in need, they are not doing their job.

Always remember that when you donate to a charity, you support the charity, not the folk they're collecting for. HfH now need to show us that our money means that they are going out and finding the people we want our money to go to.

So, spare capacity is a good thing. As long as they now go out and find people to put into it.

[Fluffy Bunny]

Thing with HfH is, they have strict criterea for who is worthy of their hard scavenged cash. If you fall outside of those boundaries you don't get a penny. They should really reaname it Help for (some) Heroes.

[Tankertrashnav]

Let's not discount the possibility of civilians taking up spare capacity. I agree that where ex military are suffering from psychological probems these should if possible be addressed at these centres, but I dont know enough about them to know if they have the specialist staff that this would require. Let's certainly prioritise military patients, after all thats what the charity givers who paid for these facilities had in mind, but as someone in Whitehall suggested, that girl who lost a leg in the Alton towers accident would greatly benefit from the treatment there, for example, so why not if space is going begging?

[Courtney Mil]

TTN, I'm not sure what the legalities would be concerning the collection of money explicitly for one purpose and then using it for another.

[Bill Macgillivray]

Courtney,

You have it right. Charities are tied legally (I help run one). However, someone in this semi-useless government must get a grip and stop talking about helping ex-forces and actually do something! As service charities we can only touch the edges, unfortunately! (But we try!!).

[Tankertrashnav]

Well legalities or not, if I'd given to either of these charities (as it happens I haven't, Ive stuck with RBL) I'd rather see the money "mis spent" than see valuable assets lying idle

[Willard Whyte]

It's shameful that veterans need a charity to aid recovery in the first place.

[Heathrow Harry]

Apparently MoD are dead set against allowing civilians to use these underused facillities


talk about a way to get a really bad press............. :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Wander00]

Fundamentally, I am with Willard, and I am also pretty unimpressed that the Air Ambulance service has to be funded to a huge extent by charity donation, not least because the AA service saves the NHS a fortune by getting casualties to hospital so much more quickly ("golden hour")


Now to the specific. I applaud the initiative of those that set up HforH, but I do not think it was well thought through - lets raise lots of money then see what to spend it on. But it caught the public imagination, and better than the established forces charities, which were already doing a very good job for veterans, but not perhaps so good at catching the public imagination. Sadly HforH leached the services charity donation pot in much the same way a certain old bomber has done to the historic aviation field. HforH is constrained by its "charitable objectives" - perhaps the way forward is for consultation with the Charity Commission on amending those objectives, working more closely with the established services charities. best of all would be the Government working to meet the terms of the Military Covenant and taking responsibility for those in difficulty of mind, body or otherwise as a result of service in the Armed Forces. Oh, and publicly fund the Air Ambulance Service!

[Chugalug2]

Seems to me that Help for Heroes and Combat Stress should be amalgamated. Presumably charities can amalgamate with the agreement of the Charity Commissioners?

The problem would be rather the attitude of the Trustees I imagine. "It's our money not theirs...". It always comes down to money in the end. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions.