Fitness Farce

Lucy has to cope not only with the condition of MS but with the annual charade of having to renew her HGV licence with the DVLA’s Drivers Medical Group

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In October 2016 the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s Driven to Despair report found major failings in the way DVLA’s Drivers Medical Group was handling cases about medical fitness to drive.

As it happens, I have a bit of a niche interest in this subject because I’ve struggled with the Drivers Medical Group too. Over and over again.

I’m lucky. My neurological condition, MS, is the kind where, although I have to renew my HGV categories every 12 months, I’m allowed to continue driving on a cover note while they think about it. When I was first diagnosed, things actually went remarkably smoothly but it’s been downhill from there and each year I have spent longer and longer, working on the basis of a tatty bit of A4 saying I can drive so long as my doctor doesn’t tell me not to.