Those in social care jobs with knowledge of the armed forces should be used to support veterans with mental health conditions, claims a new report.

A pilot project run in six areas saw service users receive complementary support from organisations, who have past experience of working with ex-service personnel.

The Ministry of Defence commissioned the project and it is hoped the specialist support will help combat high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse and homelessness among veterans.

The six pilot studies took place in Staffordshire, Camden and Islington, Tees, Esk and Wear Valley, Cardiff, Cornwall and Edinburgh. Specialists from the University of Sheffield's centre for psychological services research carried out the evaluation of the pilots. They approved of the use of staff who themselves were veterans, the badging of teams and buildings as being for veterans and the routine accessing of forces' service records for new referrals.

However, the evaluation criticised assessment-only services which meant service users were treated by the NHS and on waiting lists for treatment. They recommended that when veterans were unable to get exclusive use of a service, such as alcohol detox, then they should be given priority over other service users.

Dr Kim Dent-Brown who was one of the researchers on the study told Community Care: "The services we studied were small and modestly funded, but staffed by highly dedicated, skilled and experienced staff who co-operated with our study while often single handedly running their services. We hope their example can be a source of learning for similar services across the NHS."