Whittington Hospital NHS Trust
Source: gov.uk (2025-11-10)

We, the undersigned, commit to honour the Armed Forces Covenant and support the Armed Forces Community. We recognise the value Serving Personnel, both Regular and Reservists, Veterans and military families contribute to our business and our country.

The Armed Forces Covenant

An enduring covenant between the people of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty’s Government and all those who serve or have served in the Armed Forces of the Crown and their families

The first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. Our Armed Forces fulfil that responsibility on behalf of the Government, sacrificing some civilian freedoms, facing danger and, sometimes, suffering serious injury or death as a result of their duty. Families also play a vital role in supporting the operational effectiveness of our Armed Forces. In return, the whole nation has a moral obligation to the members of the Naval Service, the Army and the Royal Air Force, together with their families. They deserve our respect and support, and fair treatment.

Those who serve in the Armed Forces, whether Regular or Reserve, those who have served in the past, and their families, should face no disadvantage compared to other citizens in the provision of public and commercial services. Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved.

This obligation involves the whole of society: it includes voluntary and charitable bodies, private organisations, and the actions of individuals in supporting the Armed Forces. Recognising those who have performed military duty unites the country and demonstrates the value of their contribution. This has no greater expression than in upholding this Covenant.

Section 1: Principles of the Armed Forces Corporate Covenant

1.1 We Whittington Hospital NHS Trust will endeavour in our business dealings to uphold the key principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, which are:
- no member of the Armed Forces Community should face disadvantage in the provision of public and commercial services compared to any other citizen;
- and in some circumstances that special treatment may be appropriate especially for the injured or bereaved.
Section 2: Demonstrating our commitment

2.1 Whittington Hospital NHS Trust recognises the value serving personnel, reservists, veterans and military families bring to our business. We will seek to uphold the principles of the Armed Forces Covenant, by pledging to the following:
- Armed Forces Friendly
- UK Service Veterans And Leavers
- UK Service Spouses And Partners
- Flexible Leave For Spouses
- UK Reservists
- UK Cadets
- Armed Forces Day
- Reserve Forces Day
We also pledge the following:

-Promoting the fact that we are an armed forces friendly organisation; through our policy supporting two weeks annual leave for reservists; through recruitment processes which recognise the skills which armed forces veterans and service leavers bring; through promoting national armed forces week and reserves day through our communications channels -Seeking the employment of veterans young and old by running Step into Health, which actively supports and employs people from the armed forces community. Through this programme we run insight events, mentoring, arranging bespoke work placements and have recruitment processes which benefit the armed forces community -Step into health is open to spouses, partners and dependants and therefore we actively seek to recruit from this group -We are working with our local medical units to help promote the reservist agenda in our organisation. We will use our channels of communication to promote reservists, show our support for the armed forces community, and will create a process to ensure all current reservists are recorded on ESR

2.2 We will publicise these commitments through our literature and/or on our website, setting out how we will seek to honour them and inviting feedback from the Service community and our customers on how we are doing.