Call for higher driving licence form reimbursement

The BMA has called for a rise in reimbursement for completing driving licensing medical forms, with the association warning that current rates are leaving doctors out of pocket.

The association’s professional fees committee has said GPs are being financially penalised by the failure to increase the £42 fee that can be charged for undertaking medical reviews related to driving licence applications.

Medical review forms for the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) are classed as a non-NHS service, with the financial cost of completing this work therefore falling upon individual GPs.

The fee, which is the amount of reimbursement a doctor can claim from the DVLA when completing medical forms, has seen no increase since it was last agreed in 2004.

Despite recent constructive discussions with the licensing authority over boosting the level of reimbursement, the DVLA has said that financial constraints mean it is unable to fund any increase.

In a recent letter to Lilian Greenwood the Department for Transport minister for the future of roads, PFC chair Peter Holden called for necessary funding to be provided to the DVLA to allow for enhancements to the medical form fee rate.

He warned that failure to do so could further worsen the ‘dire financial straits’ facing many practices, and ultimately see fewer GPs willing to ‘complete this work for the DVLA’.

He said: ‘The DVLA medical form is a non-NHS service and its completion is not part of the General Medical Service GP contract.

‘Every request for the completion of a DVLA form is different. Some requests can be completed

relatively quickly as the medical history of the patient is small and the patient is well known to the GP.

‘However, in more complex cases, where a GP must review a large medical history to ensure accuracy of any comment they make in a letter/form, they must consider how much time it has taken to complete this work and in many cases this is considerable.

‘The reality is that with no uplift since 2004, the current fee of £42 falls far short of what is required, and GPs are now paying personally from their own pockets to provide this service.’

Dr Holden added: ‘I am therefore calling on you to provide the necessary funding to the DVLA so that the fee can be uplifted.

‘Situations such as this are contributing to the dire financial straits which general practice funding finds itself in [and] I am worried that without an increase in fees fewer GPs will decide to complete this work for the DVLA.’

The PFC is due to meet later this month with the issue of reimbursement for DVLA medical forms likely to receive significant focus.

For more information on doctors’ fees for driver licensing and the DVLA.