The UK’s Naval welfare sector provides support to a sizeable community of Serving and former-Serving Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Marines (RM) personnel and their families. To inform future strategic planning around the delivery of support to the community, Greenwich Hospital commissioned RAND Europe to undertake research into the evolving size, demographics and support needs of the RN&RM community.
To provide a comprehensive view of the evolving support landscape, RAND Europe used a mixed methods research design, drawing on analysis of existing and newly collected data from the Serving and former-Serving RN&RM community. Firstly, we used modelling and simulation approaches to forecast the size and demographics of the RN&RM community out to 2040. Secondly, we conducted a survey with members of the RN&RM Serving community to understand the prevalence of different issues and challenges facing the community and identify relationships between support needs and respondents’ demographic and Service characteristics. Thirdly, we conducted interviews with the members of the Serving and former-Serving RN&RM community to explore their experiences of Service, challenges experienced during and after Service and their understanding and experiences of available support. Throughout the project, we engaged with stakeholders to inform our research design, validate findings and ensure the relevance of our recommendations.
