Defence 'fails' soldiers over injury list

The Defence Department has come under fire for endangering the safety of Diggers after admitting yesterday it did not centrally collect and analyse injuries that soldiers suffered on deployment.

The revelation came as veterans and advocates from the elite Special Air Service Regiment yesterday urged the Federal Government to set up a new independent body to help wounded and injured soldiers switch from Defence to the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Veterans' advocates yesterday questioned how Defence could improve safety for serving soldiers and avoid past mistakes if the department was not centrally collating and analysing information on injured soldiers.

The department's admission about the perceived flaw in its reporting system, which is expected to take another two years to fix, came after _The Weekend West _revealed that Veterans' Affairs has been hit with 3400 compensation claims from Diggers wounded or injured in Afghanistan.

A Defence spokesman said ADF members injured on deployment had their health outcomes recorded in their medical files, "rather than on a central database".

"Defence's e-health systems cannot easily be interrogated for reporting purposes. However a new system is being developed," he said.

Veterans' Affairs shared information on injuries, but not all the data would be collected centrally with Defence until late 2013.

SAS Association pension officer John Burrows said Defence committed to collating injury information in 2004 to identify "areas of danger which could be improved".

"I am surprised, particularly with regard to the various requirements in the civil and industrial communities for reporting these things, that from a compensation, health and safety and duty of care perspective they are not collating this information," he said.

Former SAS sergeant and Afghanistan veteran Peter Larter, who was medically discharged in 2005, said Defence and Veterans' Affairs were good organisations but soldiers were "falling through the cracks" during the transition between the departments.