Iain Duncan Smith Visit

Last Friday we welcomed The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Tracey Crouch MP for Chatham and Aylesford.  The Minister met many RBLI employees as we explained how our model of a Social Enterprise fits neatly into the Big Society Agenda.    The Minister also had an opportunity to meet some of the Armed Forces personnel who had sustained life changing injuries or illness attending our LifeWorks course.   They explained to him how the vocational assessment and employability training they had received during the week would help them to understand their employment options and compete more effectively for civilian work opportunities.   

We were able to feedback to the Minister some suggestions to enable us all to offer the widest range of services to former Armed Forces personnel

At the same time we hosted a meeting of representatives from KCC, Jobcentre Plus, G4S and Service Charities; including the Poppy Factory and Royal British Legion to explore how organisations could work together more effectively to improve access to services for former Armed Forces personnel seeking work.  We were able to feedback to the Minister some suggestions for quick and easy wins that would ensure better data capture and integration of services to enable us all to offer the widest range of services to former Armed Forces personnel.  Thus ensuring we can work together to help meet the principles of the Military Covenant.

The Secretary of State displayed a genuine feel and understanding of the work of RBLI.  He interacted positively with everyone he met and the visit was a most positive stimulus for all.  

Armed Forces Forum

We recently had the pleasure of hosting and attending the South East Coast Armed Forces Forum which has been established to act as a liaison between Kent PCT’s and the MoD and to provide strategic overview of the military health work for Kent PCT clusters.  The forum includes many of our strategic partners, such as MoD, NHS Medway, NHS West Kent, the Strategic Health Authority and KCC.

We will be hosting the next meeting of the group in September at our state of the art and newly refurbished training centre, Capel Morris and will be exploring the possibility of organising a formal event to assist in a familiarisation programme for the members to understand one another’s organisations a little better so that we can all better support the Armed Forces Community.

This is a great opportunity to get involved in the provision of support to the service community and develop even greater links and relationships with our partners across Kent.