Military families would receive special NHS support and extra school funding under Tory plans

Military personnel would receive special help securing NHS treatment for their families as they move around the country under plans drawn up by the Conservative Party.

Their children will also receive extra school funding as part of interim proposals to persuade servicemen it is worth their while to stay in the Armed Forces.

The proposals come from the Tory policy commission, chaired by novelist Frederick Forsyth, which has been launched to tackle concerns about the recruitment and retention in the armed forces.

Forces families will be promised that they will no longer lose their place on waiting lists when they move around the country. Instead, they will jump to the same place in the queue at their new home.

They would also be guaranteed an NHS dentist, even if the local waiting lists are full. NHS Trusts will face a statutory duty to ensure all armed forces families in their area are guaranteed treatment.

Many personnel are thought to be quitting because of the difficulties imposed on their families, who must move from area to area.

Shadow defence secretary Liam Fox will launch the report from the Military Covenant Commission today, by claiming that the Army has broken its sacred vow to look after the families of injured and fallen servicemen.

The commission's report said: 'The current unmitigated intensity of operations is having a significant impact on service family life and, inevitably, on effectiveness and retention.

'The Army Families Federation has highlighted the fact that coping whilst a family member is away from home is particularly challenging both emotionally and financially.'

It follows comments earlier this month from Richard Dannatt, the Chief of the General Staff, that some soldiers were paid at the same rates as traffic wardens.

He said: 'You look to see how much a traffic warden is paid and compare that against what a private soldier gets paid.

'I think you will find that an individual serviceman gets paid quite a lot less.'

The national average salary for a traffic warden including overtime is £20,526, according to the Office for National Statistics.

A newly-trained private soldier facing intense combat in Afghanistan earns a salary of £16,227, while extra allowances take his pay to just below the average for a traffic warden.

While traffic wardens endure little worse than hostility from angry drivers, troops in combat face the very real prospect of being killed or maimed by the enemy.

Sir Richard added: 'I'd like to see service pay go up above inflation for the next couple of years and keep going up if this level of commitment continues.'

Other senior military figures have criticised the Government's policy to allow soldiers injured in Iraq and Afghanistan to share hospital wards with NHS patients as signs of a disregard for their welfare.

Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth said yesterday it was the type of fighting experienced by troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that is one reason why many soldiers are leaving the services early.

He said committing troops to two live theatres meant they were getting front-line experience much more quickly than previous generations, which was having an impact on retention.

At Commons question time, Mr Ainsworth said retention was a 'complex issue' and paying service personnel more money was not the only answer.

He said an 'awful lot' of recruits left the Army during training and senior commanders were looking at how that could be remedied.

But responding to senior Tory Sir Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield), Mr Ainsworth added: 'There's also the issue of the actual soldiering that our people are doing today - they face very complex and dangerous circumstances in Afghanistan, in Iraq.

'They face those willingly and if you talk to them out there, on theatre, they enjoy what they do.

'But they are getting their soldiering experience a lot quicker over a shorter timescale than generations have done before and therefore retention will remain a difficult issue, a complex issue, and we have got to continue to try to strive to do everything that we can in order to meet that because we can't afford to lose the skills that we have invested so much in.'