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Thank you for your email dated 12/05/2026 with your query on the current status of your current claim review.
On average claims are taking 18 months to process and the delays are due to ongoing transformation to deliver an improved service to customers. Currently MAs are working on claims which were received in Mid 2024, which is due to ongoing transformation activity and high claim volumes. Claimed are assessed in strict date order based on date of claim, with your claim being received in April 2025.
The current status of your claim is that it is awaiting assessment by our Medical Advisor. This will be the status of your claim until this assessment has taken place.
Kind Regards, SY
veterans charter my arse, so decoded from the above when am i likely to get an answer 18 months from april 2025 or 18 months from when they get to pick up the paperwork from then? if they are only on mid 2024 now and they wont finish those for 18 months i could be 6 foot under by then.
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Thank you for your email dated 12/05/2026 with your query on the current status of your current claim review. On average claims are taking 18 months to process and the delays are due to ongoing transformation to deliver an improved service to customers. Currently MAs are working on claims which were received in Mid 2024, which is due to ongoing transformation activity and high claim volumes. Claimed are assessed in strict date order based on date of claim, with your claim being received in April 2025. The current status of your claim is that it is awaiting assessment by our Medical Advisor. This will be the status of your claim until this assessment has taken place. Kind Regards, SY veterans charter my arse, so decoded from the above when am i likely to get an answer 18 months from april 2025 or 18 months from when they get to pick up the paperwork from then? if they are only on mid 2024 now and they wont finish those for 18 months i could be 6 foot under by then.
@mitch ,It basically means Defence Business Services (the VA’s subordinate department) foisted a new ‘not very good’ computer system onto the Veterans Agency (the ‘transformation’) and the staffing has been cut drastically. Couple that with an increase in deterioration and supplementary allowances claims, the wait times for a decision are currently awful, often upwards of two years.
The staff have been offered weekend working on overtime to help clear the backlog, but morale is so low amongst those remaining staff that not many are taking it up. The forthcoming move from Tomlinson House at Norcross to the ‘Hub’ in Blackpool isn’t going to help matters either.
The Veterans Agency is now a hollowed out shell compared to how it used to be (very much like the entire UK armed forces in fact)! Not the staff’s fault – it was imposed from on high.
If your constituency MP is any good, engage them – a personal visit to one of their surgeries is probably best and take copies of all paperwork etc. MP’s do have a direct access way in to try to expedite things.
Hopefully you won’t be pushing up the daisies before you get a decision!
hi bigdave, you wont believe the irony here. this is my mp as much use as a chocolate teapot.
Louise Sandher-Jones is the Labour MP for North East Derbyshire, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024. She currently holds the Government post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces).
hi bigdave, you wont believe the irony here. this is my mp as much use as a chocolate teapot. Louise Sandher-Jones is the Labour MP for North East Derbyshire, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024. She currently holds the Government post of Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for the Armed Forces).
Yes, there is a certain irony there and I agree re chocolate teapots!
However, I would still engage her with your complaint. As she is a former Minister for Veterans & People at MOD (she was reshuffled to Minister for Armed Forces), she should take an interest. During the meeting, tell her you wish to make a formal complaint about Veterans_UK. I would also tell her I was expecting an even better service from her due to her previous role!
If, as I expect, she doesn’t do much, then I would be looking towards the Parliamentary & Health Ombudsman (from tomorrow called the Public Service Ombudsman) and lodging a formal complaint about the Veterans Agency there:
If nothing, MP’s and Senior Civil Servants don’t like Ombudsmen poking their nose in!
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