Nuclear veterans' medical record handling haphazard, report finds

Image caption, Nuclear test veterans met then Labour opposition leader, Sir Keir Starmer, in 2021, campaigning for full disclosure of the impact of the UK's nuclear bomb testing programme. By Nicholas Watt Newsnight political editor Published 2 hours ago High levels of Cold War "secrecy" were a factor in the haphazard approach taken towards the medical records of nuclear test veterans, an official report has found. The lack of a centralised approach means that the system will appear "complex and inconsistent" to the veterans who have been campaigning for the full release of their medical records. The findings come in a series of official documents released by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in response to years of campaigning by the veterans. Andy Burnham spoke up in favour of the nuclear test veterans on Tuesday evening in his first speech in parliament since his re-election last month, endorsing their call for a "special tribunal". As many as 25,000 members of the UK armed services, scientists and civilians took part in the nuclear testing programme between 1952 and 1967 at sites including Australia and several islands in the Pacific Ocean. Veterans who believe they have suffered ill health as a result of their service can apply for no-fault compensation under the War Pensions Scheme. They believe that records of blood and urine tests taken around the time they witnessed nuclear tests will provide crucial evidence to prove their claim that their health was damaged. Truth about UK nuclear veterans 'covered up', says Andy Burnham Published 25 June 2025 Nuclear veterans hand 'evidence dossier' to police Published 19 May 2025 'I was a guinea pig during secret nuclear tests' Published 28 February 2024 The report said there has never been "a single store of records" relating to every service person, mainly because the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force were each run by separate government departments until 1964. It says: "At a basic level, there is not, and never has been, a single store of records related to every serving person, maintained over decades with all preserved in perpetuity. "This is fundamental to understanding how these records have been managed and therefore what is possible and available for the veterans and their descendants to access." But the report says that Cold War secrecy was a factor in the way medical records were kept. It says: "One also cannot overlook the national security considerations around the nuclear testing programme that would likely have influenced what took place, what was recorded, and the levels of secrecy observed by those involved. "It was a time of extremely high geopolitical tensions at which the world came close to nuclear conflict, and the nuclear weapons programme of the UK and the US were the subject of espionage by our enemies intent on developing technology and weapons of their own. "There is some evidence of these considerations impacting the approach." Other finding in the report include: The disclosure