I am grateful to both the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, and the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for their brief consideration of today’s order. Again, I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, about the lack of a telephone number. My officials behind me have heard that, and I reassure him, and any noble Lord, that if ever they have any question about any legislation that I am doing, my door is always open and I will find an official who can answer their questions, big or small. However, obviously, it is not ideal not to have a telephone number in there, and we will do it in future.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, talked about speed. Part of what we are trying to do here is to increase the amount of capacity within the healthcare system to allow the reports to come back more quickly. That will allow for quicker decisions for people who are waiting and hoping to get their driving licence back. Also, when a decision is made that, unfortunately, a driving licence needs to be revoked, that will also be done more quickly—so there is a road safety benefit element as well.
The noble Baroness picked up on the fact that this will be a phased introduction. In the first phase, things will still always go through the doctor before they go to any other healthcare professional. We will then ensure that we are not seeing any abuses and that the system is working well, and we will of course speak to doctors’ representatives—the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners, the RCGP—to see how they feel it is going. We are not in a huge rush to move through the first phase, because the doctor is probably able to deal quite quickly with the decision, “Should I pass it on or do it myself?” So we will still be saving time, but I agree that we must make sure that this is working and that there are no
gaps whatever in the system. When we are content that that is the case, we will write to the BEIS Committee, and I will be happy to share that with noble Lords so that they see the results of the review and the rationale behind us moving to a further phase—if indeed that is what we decide to do at that point.
The noble Baroness also mentioned that this statutory instrument is UK-wide—it is actually GB-wide, because Northern Ireland has a different licensing system—and that healthcare is devolved. I absolutely agree, and to a certain extent, this order links to however healthcare is organised in the devolved Administrations, because they can decide for themselves how they get the information back to the DVLA. Of course, we consulted with the devolved Administrations before we finalised the policy and there was broad support from them for the aim of removing a burden on the doctors by amending this law. We informed the devolved Administrations about the full public consultation, and we received supportive responses from officials, so I do not see any concern at this time that the devolved Administrations will find this difficult in any way.
There was a de minimis impact assessment, because it has very little impact on business per se. The businesses that it impacts are GPs’ surgeries, but they can choose whether they decide to put this into place. We think that a little familiarisation will need to be undertaken within GPs’ surgeries, but then it is up to them as to how they organise their business internally. The fees remain the same, so they will judge—certainly it remains a de minimis impact.
On engagement and consultation, we had some quite significant conversations with the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners to put their minds at rest that in no way were we trying to force doctors to do anything at all. This is an optional proposal for them. They fully understood that we would never turn round and say, “No; we don’t want information from doctors any more”. We absolutely do—we want information from the right person, and that is absolutely behind what we are seeing here. DVLA officials have met with representatives from the BMA and the RCGP, and we will continue to have discussions with them as this rolls out.
Some people have raised a lack of skills and training. As I said in my opening remarks, we are content that the sorts of people who will be doing this are very skilled—in many circumstances we trust them with our lives, or at the very least with our health. There will be a definition of “healthcare professional”; so not just anybody who happens to work in a GP’s office will be able to do this. Anybody who does it will have to be, for example, a member of the General Optical Council, the General Osteopathic Council, or the Health and Care Professions Council; so they have to have professional membership. The other thing that the DVLA is very willing to do with regard to improving their skills and knowledge of this is to help develop the training. Often the training is provided by these professional organisations; the DVLA already works with some professional organisations to develop training, and although I do not believe that it would be particularly substantial, the DVLA stands ready to support them as they develop that.
I believe that I have answered all the questions, and if not, I will very happily write. No, I have not—I have just found the professional indemnity question from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. This is a matter for the individual professional to discuss with the organisation that they work for, such as the GP practice or the NHS trust or board—or they may wish to seek advice from their professional organisation, for example the Nursing and Midwifery Council, for guidance on matters of indemnity cover. There is probably no one size fits all, therefore there will be lots of different ways to cover the professional indemnity. However, I point out, as I did in my opening remarks, that the DVLA remains responsible for the actual decision; the person is purely providing the information and the DVLA has its own panels of doctors and medical experts who then decide whether a licence should be revoked.