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Our November event in Parliament, hosted by the Henry Jackson Society, brought a quietly radical idea into Westminster: what if we treated trauma not just with words and medication, but by directly calming and rewiring the nervous system itself?
Clinical and neuropsychologist Dr Orli Peter, founder and CEO of the Israel Healing Initiative (IHI), set out exactly that vision. Her organisation “heals trauma at the speed of science” by pairing trauma-informed psychotherapy with gentle neurostimulation — including vagus-nerve methods, pulsed electric and magnetic fields, and photobiomodulation (PBM) light therapy — for people facing severe PTSD, anxiety and suicidal despair.
For UK veterans and first responders, and for a government grappling with a spiralling mental‑health welfare bill, this is more than just an interesting theory. It may be a route to recovery and a way of spending public money far more intelligently.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is what happens when a life-threatening or deeply shocking event leaves the brain and body stuck in survival mode. Flashbacks, nightmares, hyper‑vigilance, emotional numbness, anger, guilt, and avoidance are all attempts by a traumatised nervous system to keep the person safe in a world it no longer trusts.
In the UK:
- Around 1 in 10 people are expected to experience PTSD at some point in their lives.
- Roughly 4 in 100 people are living with PTSD at any given time – an estimated 2.6 million people.[1]
Among those who protect us, the numbers are even starker:
- Recent research suggests probable PTSD in around 9–10% of UK veterans, higher than in the general public.[2]
- For first responders, estimates suggest 20–25% of ambulance staff and up to 20% of police officers and staff may meet criteria for PTSD.[3]
- A global meta-analysis indicates that about 1 in 7 first responders will develop PTSD over the course of their duties.[4]
Physiologically, PTSD is not “all in the mind.” Studies show people with PTSD often have reduced heart rate variability (HRV), a sign that the parasympathetic “brake”, strongly mediated by the vagus nerve, is not working properly.[5] An average HRV is 42 milliseconds. A normal range is between 19 and 75 milliseconds. As a PTSD sufferer myself, my HRV sits, on average, at 10 milliseconds.
Polyvagal theory, developed by Stephen Porges, puts the vagus nerve at the centre of our sense of safety. When the nervous system is stuck in threat mode, behaviour, emotion and even digestion are affected.[6]
Traditional treatments such as trauma-focused talking therapies and medication absolutely help many people. Still, a significant minority, including a lot of veterans and first responders, remain “treatment‑resistant”: their symptoms persist despite doing everything asked of them.
That is the group Dr Peter is trying to reach.
The Israel Healing Initiative was set up after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks to support survivors of terrorism and war. It delivers qEEG‑guided neurostimulation[7] alongside psychotherapy, then provides simple at‑home neurostimulation devices to help people maintain gains in sleep, focus, and emotional regulation.
Dr Peter’s background is firmly scientific: she is a clinical and neuropsychologist with over three decades’ experience in trauma, and her work explicitly focuses on integrating cutting-edge neurostimulation with psychological therapies so people can stabilise more rapidly.
In Parliament, she and the Henry Jackson Society helped MPs explore what it would look like if we treated PTSD as a whole‑nervous‑system problem, not just a “mental health issue”; and we backed evidence-based neuromodulation (like vagus nerve stimulation and Pulsed Electromagnetic Field therapy) to boost the effectiveness of therapies we already know work.
To see why that matters, it is worth looking at the science behind vagus nerve stimulation first. The vagus nerve is the main highway of the parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) system, running from the brainstem through the neck to the heart, lungs and gut. It helps slow the heart, soften stress responses, and signal safety to the brain.
Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) uses gentle electrical pulses to activate this nerve. Non‑invasive VNS involves devices that stimulate branches of the vagus nerve through the skin, usually at the ear (auricular) or neck (cervical). No surgery is needed; sessions can be done in clinics or even at home.
VNS is already an established therapy for drug-resistant epilepsy, endorsed by the National Institute for Care and Health Excellence (NICE) and used across the NHS. It has regulatory approval in some places for treatment-resistant depression and migraine.
What excited our audience of MPs and Peers in Parliament is the emerging evidence that pairing VNS with trauma therapy can dramatically improve outcomes for people who had previously not responded.
In 2025, a first-of-its-kind clinical trial from the University of Texas at Dallas and Baylor University Medical Center paired a miniaturised wireless VNS implant with Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy in treatment-resistant PTSD. The findings were remarkable. All participants lost their PTSD diagnosis by the end of treatment. The benefits lasted for at least six months after treatment stopped, and no serious device-related adverse events were reported.
These results are early. Sample sizes are still small and larger multi-centre trials are now underway, but they suggest that stimulating the vagus nerve while someone safely revisits traumatic memories may super‑charge the brain’s ability to “re-file” those experiences as past, not present.
On the non-invasive side, a double‑blind trial of transcutaneous cervical VNS in PTSD showed reduced stress-induced biological responses (including inflammatory markers like interleukin‑6) compared with sham stimulation, suggesting a genuine calming effect on the body’s overactive threat system.[8]
It is also important to distinguish regulated medical devices from the exploding market of cheap “vagus nerve gadgets” online. Leading bioelectronic medicine expert Dr Kevin Tracey has warned that many consumer devices marketed as vagus stimulators may not meaningfully stimulate the vagus at all, and that robust clinical evidence is still lacking for many of these products.[9]
So any UK programme must be clinician-led, based on regulated, evidence‑backed devices, and integrated with high-quality psychotherapy, not used as a quick fix.
Dr Peter’s model uses neuroimaging-guided neurostimulation (including gentle vagus-nerve approaches) alongside intensive psychotherapy to bring the latest neuroscience directly into care, while also tracking outcomes along the way.
PTSD shows up in the brain: a qEEG scan can reveal patterns of disrupted activity, and long-term trauma is even linked to changes in the hippocampus, the area that orchestrates memory. The benefit of using a wide range of neurostimulation tools is that different methods target different parts of the brain, helping the whole system work more smoothly as a part of a comprehensive treatment plan.
Veterans and emergency responders are precisely the people most likely to accumulate repeated traumatic exposures and least likely to walk away from their responsibilities when they are struggling.[10]
Existing NHS and charity services are doing vital work. Op COURAGE, the NHS Veterans Mental Health and Wellbeing Service, offers specialist care across England for serving personnel due to leave, as well as veterans and their families.[11] However, it can take up to a year from self-referral to receiving treatment. Programmes like Mind’s Blue Light initiative (now ended but with ongoing legacy resources) have improved mental health literacy and support across police, ambulance, and fire services.
In spite of these efforts, we still see rising PTSD rates in first responders and veterans over time, especially those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is an alarmingly high PTSD prevalence in paramedics and police officers, and a patchy uptake of support, largely due to stigma and fear of career impact.
For someone who has tried standard therapy and medication without relief, being offered another waiting list for more of the same is understandably demoralising. A pathway that says, “We can work directly with your nervous system while we process the trauma,” can feel far more hopeful and, crucially, may actually work faster and more deeply for some.
The economic argument is brutal. The overall cost of mental ill health in England is now estimated at about £300 billion per year, roughly double the entire NHS budget. New research suggests PTSD alone costs the UK economy around £40 billion a year, with an average annual cost of £14,780 per person when healthcare, lost productivity and welfare are included.[12]
Spending on working-age disability and incapacity benefits has risen from £36 billion in 2019–20 to about £48 billion, and is projected to reach £70 billion a year by the end of this Parliament. In just one year, PIP payments for anxiety and depression doubled to £3.4 billion, overtaking arthritis as the highest single condition-related cost.[13] In Scotland alone, disability payments for mental and behavioural conditions are costing taxpayers more than £1.3 billion per year, roughly £3.6 million every day.[14]
None of this is an argument against supporting people financially. The argument is that if we can help people genuinely recover, rather than merely cope, that is better for them and for the public finances.
Even a small advance quickly adds up. If a neuromodulation-enhanced PTSD treatment enabled just 5,000 veterans or first responders with chronic PTSD to improve enough to come off incapacity benefits and return to meaningful work, the potential economic gain could be on the order of £70–80 million per year, using the conservative per-person PTSD cost estimates. That is before we even count reductions in A&E attendances, physical health complications, family breakdown, and suicide risk.
That is precisely the kind of “spend to save” logic that should interest a Treasury looking nervously at the long-term welfare bill. The HJS Westminster event was about more than inspiring stories; it pointed towards concrete policy options. The UK requires a sensible, evidence-driven approach:
- Fund UK clinical trials focused on veterans and first responders
- Back randomised controlled trials of both implanted and non-invasive VNS paired with gold‑standard trauma therapies (like Prolonged Exposure or EMDR) in UK veterans (via Op COURAGE) and blue‑light services.
- Build on the promising US data rather than duplicating it blindly, ensuring we understand UK-specific cost‑effectiveness and implementation barriers.
- Create procurement frameworks for regulated VNS and related devices.
- Work with the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency, NICE and NHS England to develop clear criteria for approved VNS and neurostimulation devices used in mental health settings.
- Negotiate bulk purchase or outcome-based contracts with manufacturers for use in Op COURAGE, specialist trauma units, and pilot police/ambulance schemes.
- Integrate neuromodulation into existing veteran and blue‑light services.
- Embed neuromodulation clinics within Op COURAGE hubs and regional trauma centres so that the most complex, treatment-resistant cases can be offered cutting-edge options rather than quietly written off.
- Partner with charities and employers to ensure first responders can access these treatments without fear for their job, and with phased return‑to‑work plans.
- Insist on data, transparency and safeguards.
- Collect robust outcome data: symptom change, quality of life, employment status, benefit dependence, and family functioning.
- Publish results so future Parliamentarians can see whether neuromodulation is genuinely reducing long‑term welfare costs.
- Maintain strict ethical and clinical standards: these are medical interventions, not wellness gadgets.
- Support, not supplant, psychological care. Nothing in this agenda replaces the need for:
- Accessible, timely trauma‑focused psychotherapy
- Peer support and family services
- Organisational culture change in the military and emergency services
Neuromodulation should be seen as a force multiplier for good therapy, not a short‑cut around it, exactly as Dr Peter’s work demonstrates.
The Henry Jackson Society’s event with Dr Orli Peter did something Parliament badly needs: it joined the dots between neuroscience, human suffering and fiscal reality. Neuroscience tells us that PTSD is a disorder of a nervous system stuck in threat response. Clinical trials are starting to show that vagus‑based and electromagnetic neuromodulation can help unstick it, especially when combined with the best of modern psychotherapy. The welfare figures make clear that not investing in better treatments is already ruinously expensive.
For UK veterans and first responders who have done everything their country asked and are now trapped in invisible battles with their own nervous systems, the message from our discussion should be simple: you are not broken beyond repair. Your brain and body can change. The state has both a moral and economic duty to help that happen as quickly and safely as science allows.
If Parliament can turn that insight into properly funded trials, smart procurement, and integrated neuromodulation within existing services, the payoff will be measured not just in billions saved, but in lives reclaimed.
- Major (Ret.) Andrew Fox is an Associate Fellow at The Henry Jackson Society
[1] https://www.ptsduk.org/ptsd-stats/
[2] https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/ptsd-on-the-rise
[3] https://researchforyou.co.uk/mac-news/the-impact-of-ptsd-on-first-responders/
[4] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735825000893
[5] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32621850/
[6] https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/whatispolyvagaltheory
[7] Quantitative Electroencephalography
[8] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5534856/
[9] https://nypost.com/2025/05/14/health/beware-this-common-medical-device-scam-no-way-to-know/
[10] https://mostpolicyinitiative.org/science-note/first-responder-mental-health/
[11] https://www.nhs.uk/nhs-services/armed-forces-community/mental-health/veterans-reservists/
[12] https://www.centreformentalhealth.org.uk/publications/the-economic-and-social-costs-of-mental-ill-health/; https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2025/ptsd-costs-the-uk-economy-40-billion-a-year-new-research-says
[13] https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/anxiety-and-depression-overtake-arthritis-in-disability-benefits-b6tbgr78z
[14] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mental-health-crisis-scotland-disability-benefits-kn6ll533d
