Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what provisions are in place to allow doctors to provide information to the DVLA on a person’s fitness to drive.

Doctors play an important role in the medical notification process by advising their patients of the effect of any treatment or medication that they are receiving and whether they should notify the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). The DVLA will often correspond with a patient’s doctor, consultant or optician as part of the medical investigation to determine the impact of the patient’s condition on their fitness to drive. The DVLA provides a dedicated telephone line which allows doctors to discuss concerns about a patient’s fitness to drive with one of the DVLA’s doctors.

A doctor may also decide to notify the DVLA directly about a patient’s medical condition. This is provided for in guidance from the General Medical Council, which states that while doctors must make every reasonable effort to persuade their patients to inform the DVLA, they may themselves notify the DVLA of a patient’s medical condition, in confidence, if the patient does not do so.

To assist the medical profession the DVLA has created a dedicated form that may be used for this purpose. The DVLA treats notifications received from doctors and opticians as a high priority.