Radiation Exposure Claims

Following a recent Freedom of Information request by another organisation, the guidance for awarding AFCS claims has been published.

For any Nuclear Test Veteran who has tried to claim any war pension or entitlement for radiation exposure, it makes very interesting reading.

This blog looks at the specific areas for radiation exposure and how the claims are handled.

To this day, any Radiation Exposure claims are flagged and dealt with by the Business Management Team who have sight of all cases passing through the system.

So all claims where exposure to radiation is alleged, must be notified to the Business Management Team (BMT). They must provide accurate replies to all interested parties such as the MoD, Parliamentary Questions etc. All radiation claims must be recorded on form WPA0876.

This includes exposure from nuclear weapons at the testing sites and Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also includes nuclear submarines and nuclear powered ships.

If you are the claimant, you must provide details of the disablement and be specific and declare 'exposure to or effects of radiation'. If you fail to do this, the claim must be rejected.

If the service documents do no contain evidence of service disablement (Which we know they don't as the effects of ionising radiation can occur many years later) the caseworker must scrutinise the claim for evidence, if you are unable to do this, then submit the case to SPVAMS (Service Personnel and Veterans Agency Medical Services) on form WPA0361.

The caseworker must also contact the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) and ask for a radiation report, the caseworker must decide if the Secretary of State (SoS) accepts exposure to radiation or not.

If the AWE's report states that the claimants exposure to ionising radiation was not sensibly different from zero, the SoS cannot accept exposure to ionising radiation as a result of participation in the UK Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Tests.

So if you did not have a film badge or a dosimeter, and no records exist, you will NEVER win a claim as the reading will come back as zero.

Interestingly enough, the Air Historical Branch also advises on claims from personnel involved in the nuclear tests at Christmas Island. So what information is the Air Historical branch holding about individual personnel? Has the information relating to individuals been transferred to them? How can they advise on claims without having access to information?

The guidance continues stating that the SPVAMS decide if the condition being claimed is casually linked to radiation. But the SPVAMS are a section of the Ministry of Defence. The radiation referral letter must only be issued following advice from SPVAMS.

Files where the referral need to marked in red with the words 'RADIATION'. Yet when we asked for information on these files, including the numbers of applications and the refusals, the MoD stated that they could not find this information as it was too time consuming, yet all radiation claim files are marked in red and the BMT department have a copy of all applications and outcomes.

Conclusion

The current system for claiming exposure for Nuclear Test Veterans is stacked against the claimant, event though Dr Murrison stated that the application process was open to any nuclear veteran who believed they had a claim.

We now know the truth, the radiation claims are flagged, they are dealt with by a specific department and are all logged and tracked using a special form and parliament and other departments are informed of all cases, yet the MoD denied that they kept track of the information and that providing the statistics was too time consuming. We have asked them again under the Freedom of Information Act for this information.

The government are relying on AWE radiation reports when they do not exist for many of the men, they did not all wear dosimeters or film badges and when they did, these were inaccurate or contaminated. See our previous blog for information regarding film badges: (https://www.labrats.international/post/es-files-dosages)

The system is rigged in favour of the Ministry of Defence, they provide the reports, they make the rules and provide the reports, it is time to scrap the application process for radiation exposure claims and implement an enhanced RECA alternative.

The questions are, why when a veteran applies for a radiation exposure claim does the MoD, Parliament and other organisations need to be informed? Does this happen with all applications? Why is there a special form and why are the files marked in red with the word 'RADIATION'?