If your illness or injury happened on or after 6 April 2005 and the predominant cause of the condition was a factor of your service, we can help you claim through the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.
Unlike the WP scheme, in AFCS, claims are subject to strict time limits and in most cases, claims can only be submitted within seven years from the point of injury or onset of symptoms. You can claim while still in service or post discharge if still within the seven years. In some circumstances, you may be able to claim for illnesses, injuries or conditions that existed pre-service or arose during service for non-service causes, if service made the condition worse.
When to claim? As stated above, the window for AFCS claims is seven years; in some cases, particularly musculoskeletal injuries, it may not be to your advantage to claim soon after the onset the injury, for example, while still medically downgraded. To allow the long-term effects of the injury to reflect in the given tariff, it may be more prudent to wait until treatment has run its course and you have arrived at the final medical category.
This scheme is administered by Veterans-UK, which is part of the MOD’s Defence Business Services.
If your claim is rejected by Veterans-UK or the claim is allowed but the level of assessment in WP or the given tariff in AFCS falls short of what you expected, we can review your claim and advise you on whether there are grounds to appeal the decision.
If we find that an appeal has merit, we can guide you through the appeal process and act as your Representative in court should the appeal go to a formal hearing known as the War Pension and Armed Forces Tribunal.
Please note: it will not always be possible to offer representation at Tribunal if you submit an appeal without consulting this charity prior to launching the appeal. There may be insufficient time to assess and prepare a case or we may not necessarily agree with the grounds of the submitted appeal and would be unable to support it.