Combat Stress

Case Study: Digitising Historical Archives for Combat Stress Veterans’ Charity

Client: Combat Stress – The Veterans’ Mental Health Charity

Industry: Charitable Sector / Heritage & Archives

Services Provided: Archive Document Scanning, Heritage Scanning, Photo Scanning, Microfiche Scanning

Pearl Scan was commissioned to digitise over a century of historical archives for Combat Stress, the United Kingdom’s leading veterans’ mental health charity. Founded in 1919 following the First World War, Combat Stress holds an invaluable collection of corporate records, historical photographs, and documents dating back to the charity’s earliest days of supporting servicemen suffering from shell shock – now recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This heritage digitisation project, funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund, successfully transformed fragile physical archives into accessible digital assets, preserving the charity’s remarkable history for future generations.

Background: A Century of Supporting Veterans

Combat Stress was established on 12 May 1919, originally as the Ex-Servicemen’s Welfare Society, at a time when soldiers returning from the First World War received little sympathy or understanding for their psychological wounds. The charity’s founders believed that with proper support, veterans could overcome their trauma and lead fulfilling lives. Over more than one hundred years, Combat Stress has evolved to become the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health, providing specialist treatment for conditions including PTSD, anxiety, and depression.

Throughout its history, the charity has accumulated a significant archive of corporate information, historical photographs, and documents of considerable heritage value. These records were stored across four national sites in various archive boxes, cabinets, and cupboards. Over time, this collection had grown substantially, making it increasingly difficult for staff to access important historical materials efficiently.

The Challenge: Preserving Fragile Historical Records

Combat Stress faced several significant challenges with their physical archive collection. The documents, some dating back to 1919, were deteriorating due to age and handling. Limited storage space meant that materials could not be organised systematically, creating difficulties for staff who required frequent access to historical records. The collection included particularly fragile items such as leather-bound minute books with handwritten pages, which risked further damage each time they were handled.

According to The National Archives’ Digitisation Taskforce report, institutions surveyed across the UK felt that nearly three-quarters of their collections could potentially be digitised, yet only around 18% were described as digitised at the time of the survey. The report emphasised that digitisation has the power to unlock cultural assets and expand their reach significantly. Combat Stress recognised that professional archive scanning was essential to preserve their irreplaceable heritage materials and make them accessible to researchers, historians, and the public.

Project Scope: A Comprehensive Digitisation Programme

The archive collection presented a diverse range of document types and formats requiring specialist handling and scanning expertise. The scope included circa:

• 26 archive boxes containing corporate records and historical documents
• 15 executive minute books documenting board meetings and key decisions
• 11 leather-bound books with handwritten double-sided pages requiring delicate handling
• 4 loose-leaf books with single-sided pages
• Approximately 2,500 historical photographs of various sizes, many with important metadata written on the reverse
• 400 plans and technical drawings requiring large format scanning
• Many Legal documents and microfiche records from across the charity’s operational history

Our Solution: Professional Heritage Digitisation

Funding and Project Planning

Combat Stress successfully secured Heritage Lottery funding to finance the initial stage of their digitisation project. The National Lottery Heritage Fund, which has awarded over £8.8 billion to more than 51,000 heritage projects across the UK since 1994, provides crucial support for organisations seeking to preserve and share their historical collections. Following a comprehensive procurement process, Pearl Scan was selected to deliver the digitisation programme.

Methodology and Quality Assurance

Pearl Scan’s approach began with close collaboration with Combat Stress’s project team to understand their specific requirements and establish clear output specifications. A dedicated team of technical and logistical resources was assigned to the project to ensure seamless delivery. Prior to commencing the full digitisation programme, a sample batch was processed to demonstrate the quality of outputs and allow for any adjustments to be made at the setup stage.

All records were collected from the charity’s premises and transported securely to Pearl Scan’s processing centre, where the dedicated team scanned, captured, and converted the records according to the agreed specification. Our processes adhere to BS 10008, the British Standard for evidential weight and legal admissibility of electronically stored information, ensuring that digitised records maintain their integrity and authenticity throughout their lifecycle.

Technical Approach

The digitisation process utilised professional document scanners, specialist microfiche scanning equipment, and photographic scanning technology to capture each item at the appropriate resolution. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) was applied to text-based documents, making the content fully searchable. Comprehensive metadata was captured for each item, enabling efficient organisation and retrieval of the digital archive.

Results and Benefits

The completed digital archive was delivered in PDF format, structured and organised in a manner compatible with the charity’s website for public access. The project delivered numerous benefits aligned with The National Archives’ guidance on the value of digitisation:

Enhanced Accessibility: Staff and researchers can now instantly access and retrieve historical documents from any location via the charity’s website, eliminating the need to travel to physical archive locations.

Improved Preservation: Creating digital copies of fragile items mitigates the risk of damage from handling and environmental factors, ensuring these cultural treasures are preserved for future generations.

Organised Filing System: Historical documents are now structured and indexed systematically, replacing the previous ad-hoc storage across multiple sites.

Space Recovery: Physical storage space previously occupied by archive boxes can now be reallocated for other operational needs.

Disaster Recovery: Digital copies provide essential backup protection against potential disasters such as fire, flood, or deterioration.

Research Facilitation: The searchable digital archive enables scholars and historians to uncover new insights and connections that would have been difficult to find in physical collections.

Client Feedback

“Pearl ensured that the project ran smoothly and accommodated over and above the original scope in documents to be scanned. The quality of the finished scanning was good and delivered in a format that could be used. The process was painless and delivered well by the development manager, with time well spent in the initial stages to understand formats and outputs.”

— Combat Stress Project Team

Conclusion

This heritage digitisation project demonstrates Pearl Scan’s expertise in handling sensitive historical materials whilst delivering high-quality digital outputs. By transforming Combat Stress’s physical archives into an accessible digital collection, we have helped preserve over a century of the charity’s history and made it available to a global audience. The project exemplifies best practice in archive digitisation and aligns with the UK Government’s Culture is Digital strategy for unlocking the nation’s cultural heritage assets.

For organisations seeking to digitise their historical collections, whether funded through the National Lottery Heritage Fund or other sources, Pearl Scan offers comprehensive heritage scanning and digitisation services tailored to your specific requirements. Contact us today for a free consultation and quotation.