Mandatory reporting of medical conditions to the DVLA

I was happy to join fellow Labour MPs to demand urgent changes to the law around mandatory reporting of medical conditions to the DVLA, following tragic deaths of their constituents.

I, along with the other MPs named at the bottom of this letter, have written to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander calling for medical professionals to be legally required to report patients with visual impairments that make them unsafe to drive.

This was following a case where Susan Rimaitas's 79-year-old mother, Marie Cunningham, and her 85-year-old friend Grace Foulds were fatally struck by 67-year-old Glyn Jones while crossing a road in Southport, Merseyside in 2021. Jones had been advised on nine separate occasions by medical professionals that his visual impairment made him unsafe to drive, yet he elected not to self-report this to the DVLA as required.

The case prompted HM Senior Coroner for Lancashire, Dr James Adeley, to issue a "prevention of future deaths notice" to the Transport Secretary following an inquest at Preston Coroner's Court.

Under current legislation, there is no mandatory legal requirement for optometrists to advise the DVLA of a driver's visual impairment unless it is considered to be in the public interest. Crucially, there is also no facility to share such information with police or add it to driver databases used to identify disqualified drivers.

The urgency of reform was further highlighted by another case ruled on by Coroner Adeley - the death of 75-year-old Anne Ferguson, who was killed by van driver Vernon Law in Whitworth, Rochdale, in July 2023. Law had been told he had cataracts in both eyes a month before the fatal collision but lied to an optometrist about driving and repeatedly failed to declare his sight issues on DVLA licence applications.

The letter calls for:

• Mandatory reporting by medical professionals when patients have visual impairments making them unsafe to drive

• Creation of systems allowing safety-critical medical information to be added to police driver databases

• Strengthened procedures to identify and remove unfit drivers from UK roads

We have requested a meeting with the Transport Secretary on behalf of the campaign group to discuss implementation of these life-saving changes and offer their support in delivering the legislative reforms needed to make Britain's roads safer.

The current system is failing - allowing drivers who medical professionals know are unsafe to remain on our roads is a loophole we cannot afford to ignore.