168,000 drivers with medical conditions waiting for licence as DVLA misses 90-day target

• DVLA is still failing to process 90 per cent of medical driving licences within 90 days 
• Close to 170,000 drivers with medical conditions are waiting for a new licence or renewal
• Drivers continue to contact Ask HJ about long delays with their application 

Thousands of drivers with medical conditions are continuing to face long delays with their driving licence application or renewal.  

Julie Lennard, chief executive of the DVLA, told MPs on Thursday (24 November 2022), that 168,000 medical driving licence applications were still being processed, as of 23 November. 

A medical driving licence is issued to a driver who suffers from a condition that needs to be declared to the DVLA. This can include diabetes, sleep apnoea, epilepsy or a heart condition.

The DVLA pledged in its Business Plan 2022-23 that it would return to ‘normal’ processing times for medical driving licence applications by September, following long delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and strike action. 

DVLA misses 90-day target 

Prior to the pandemic, 90 per cent of medical driving licence applications were processed within 90 days. However, data uncovered by HonestJohn.co.uk's sister brand heycar shows that the Government agency has failed to return to that target. 

Between 1 September 2022 and 16 September 2022 - the date of heycar's Freedom of Information (FOI) request - a total of 48,409 medical licensing decisions were made, with 30,304 (62.5 per cent) of those decisions being made within 90 days of the case being opened.

Medical driving licence applications make up a significant proportion (70.7 per cent) of those drivers waiting to have their licence application processed. As of 16 September 2022, there were a total of 300,454 driving licence applications (including car/motorcycle and bus/lorry applications), being processed. Of those, 212,642 applications were medical driving licence applications.

This compares to 39.2 per cent in March 2022 when there were 336,759 medical driving licence applications out of a total of 857,816 applications that needed to be processed. 

At the peak of the backlog there were 1.1 million applications (medical and standard) in the system in September 2021. 

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) earlier this month showed that of the 24.3 million applications DVLA processed between April 2020 and September 2022, 3.3 million took longer than normal.

Enquiries from customers about their driving licence applications increased sevenfold during the pandemic, and a high number went unanswered, peaking at 5.6 million in June 2021, the report said.

The number of customer complaints to the DVLA also increased during the pandemic, from around 4,300 in 2019-20 to more than 31,900 in 2021-22.

HonestJohn.co.uk continues to hear via Ask HJ from drivers with medical conditions who have been waiting many months for their licence and are unable to get through to the DVLA. 

The DVLA has spent £24 million and forecasts it will spend a further £10 million on preparing and renting two new offices, recruiting 362 additional full-time equivalent staff, and making overtime payments to staff.

Earlier this year there was also a change in the the law to enable more healthcare professionals to complete medical questionnaires.

A DVLA spokesperson told The i that the backlog for standard applications had been “eliminated” earlier this year.

They added: “There are some delays in processing applications where drivers have told us of a medical condition but around half of the applications currently being processed are awaiting further information from a third party (usually a doctor or the customer themselves) before a decision can be made.

>>Are you experiencing delays with your driving licence application? Write to us via Ask HJ