Doctor's fee, latest advice from BMA to GPs

I saw something about this on Facebook, contacted David BASC about it.

His response is that BASC are on it, but this is completely at odds with what the BMA agreed with the Home Office a few months ago.

For some reason the cynic in me thinks that the BMA want some more money to shut up and go away ... no surprise there !
 
The eradication of strict doctor patient confidentially places doctors in an invidious position. I am sure many hundreds of scenarios can be immediately thought of by most folk on here that would lead to very unfair treatment of a licence holder through no fault of the doctor.

There should be no grey areas in law in my opinion. I really think this is a 'we are doing something' piece of bs legislation. Doctors have always been perfectly capable of making the assessment as to whether breaking confidentially is warranted.

As for BASC apparently deciding to support the idea that we should pay for a medical report if it is requested by the police/feo one wonders how the police/feo would be qualified to determine this necessity in the first place.
 
The home office guidance clearly states that the police should ask the applicant to request a medical report if he has declared a relevant condition, the police should not be requesting any initial medical report only a follow up report if required.
At the beginning of july i recieved a letter asking for a payment for £50 to cover work involved in responding to the police standard letter, i wrote to them saying i will not be paying and forwarded a copy to my licensing office, my renewed FAC dropped through the letter box on the 20th July.

Ian.
 
I submitted a change of address and one for one variation to my new area police FAC....... it took 8 weeks to process, icluding the home visit, 2 of them due to the lady who looked after my alphabetic surname range being on holiday (her colleagues point blank refused to process it in her absence). Subsequent to issuing my FAC, they called me to say they had requested a doctor's report and that I was to get in touch with my doctor to pay a £28 fee.

They have simply renewed my licence for the remaining two years term and not issued a new 5 year licence so why would they need to contact my doctor as surely his opinion for the duration of my licence should be valid? Presumably I will get stuffed for another £28 in 2 years time when my renewal is due!
 
For those objecting, we must remember, if it protects our licences then what have we to complain about? If the police want something, and want us to pay for it, then whatever the rights and wrongs of the law, we should comply.
 
The protecting of licences is not the issue here ,the issue is they agreed to provide a service without charge and because someone decided i can make money out of this his friends have joined in.The all group agreement that a medical alert system is needed has now been altered to suit doctors wanting payment and thats why BASC have said dont pay this fee.The doctors body saying 2 different things on the same subject.It may cause delays in applications because of paper work not being signed by anti doctors or i want paying doctors. Saying just pay it leaves you wide open to further costs as they milk you for more charges as happened with the license increase.A lot of frustrated people have seen NO improvement whatever licensing renewals and service since the price went up as agreed atb
 
I submitted a change of address and one for one variation to my new area police FAC....... it took 8 weeks to process, icluding the home visit, 2 of them due to the lady who looked after my alphabetic surname range being on holiday (her colleagues point blank refused to process it in her absence). Subsequent to issuing my FAC, they called me to say they had requested a doctor's report and that I was to get in touch with my doctor to pay a £28 fee.

They have simply renewed my licence for the remaining two years term and not issued a new 5 year licence so why would they need to contact my doctor as surely his opinion for the duration of my licence should be valid? Presumably I will get stuffed for another £28 in 2 years time when my renewal is due!

They have not renewed your licence for the remaining two years they have decided to issue a replacement certificate presumably because you changed force areas. I think you need to speak to your shooting association Mickey.
 
Apologies, I should have said replaced, not renewed.

It just seems a mixed up process the way they have done this, but when I queried it they simply said that is how it is done.

The other oddity is that as my GP is still up in Scotland, Police Scotland submitted the GP request not Sth Derbyshire which is my new Force???
 
As i have mentioned elsewhere on this forum, i got a letter from my GP asking for a £50 fee to cover admin costs involved in carrying out the requests of the police standard letter, i refused to pay and notified my licensing department of the non payment, my renewed FAC and SGC arrived two weeks later.

Ian.
 
For those objecting, we must remember, if it protects our licences then what have we to complain about? If the police want something, and want us to pay for it, then whatever the rights and wrongs of the law, we should comply.

I couldn't disagree more. However, rather than open another 'police conspiracy' thread I'd make a simple plea to use the correct terminology. None of us hold a firearms or shotgun licence, what we have are certificates. I guess we're all guilty of using the wrong term at some time or another but the difference between a certificate and a licence is important.
 
For those objecting, we must remember, if it protects our licences then what have we to complain about? If the police want something, and want us to pay for it, then whatever the rights and wrongs of the law, we should comply.

A private medico legal psych assessment is going to run at about £500.

Would that be fair if they asked for one each year?
 
For those objecting, we must remember, if it protects our licences then what have we to complain about? If the police want something, and want us to pay for it, then whatever the rights and wrongs of the law, we should comply.


I agree, we must comply with the law.

Fortunately the Firearms Act as amended by Statutory Instrument sets out the fees payable for Grants and Renewals.

Neither the police nor GP's have any business to subvert the authority of Parliament with what is in effect an attempt to increase these fees.
 
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For those objecting, we must remember, if it protects our licences then what have we to complain about? If the police want something, and want us to pay for it, then whatever the rights and wrongs of the law, we should comply.

Given "Shootists" posts on other threads, one might read this post as being purely sarcastic !
 
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