Doctors Fee for FAC
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hairlesshunter
Well-Known Member
No charge from my doctor completely free
Conor O'Gorman
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My understanding is that there were proposals back in 2015 for mandatory GP verification for every applicant following a number of tragic events and the 2016 system was a joined-up effort to avoid the need for mandatory GP verification for every applicant. That approach failed because of factors outside BASC's control, or indeed that of any shooting organisation.
I agree with you on the principle of police forces requiring applicants to approach a GP and pay a fee when any such additional requirement is meant to be administered and paid for by the police but as we have seen over the last few years, until things get sorted out, pragmatism has overcome principles for most people. That said, its been a few years now since 2016, so when your renewal came up, did you make a principled stand?
This is why I dropped out . My fighting organisation didn't fight.
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
Do you mean dropped out of shooting or dropped out of membership of an organisation?
It seems a curious irony that a BASC officer is asking me whether I have made a principled stand.
I did point out, while there as still time to do something about it (e.g. at least to take a principled stand), that if BASC approved the principle that applicants would have to pay for medical reports in the context of FAC/SGC application, they were supporting something that was unfair, discriminatory against those with illnesses, and an undermining of the original precept of the Firearms Act that applicants had to pay no more that the statutory fee for what is essentially a bureaucratic operation to safeguard the safety of the public should the applicants be allowed to excercise their right to own and use firearms: rather than the purchase of a special privilege by the applicant.
To start with, these fees were suggested only in cases where follow-up reports would be required after the no-cost (remember that?) initial questionnaire had been completed by the GP. However, the danger of approving that principle of additional payments being expected of applicants seemed clear at the time - if nothing else, that it would be a means to increase cost and inconvenience to applicants.
Returning to Dr O'Gorman's question: Interestingly, I didn't have to pay any additional medical fees at my last renewal.
Conor with all due respect, I dropped out of your organisation. Tell your top men to grow a pair, stand up and fight.
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
Thanks. If you had been asked to pay those fees, would you have paid them?
The latest situation is this:
The firearms licensing crisis continues…. - The British Association for Shooting and Conservation
BASC's head of firearms Martin Parker takes a closer look at the current state of firearms licensing and where we go from here.
basc.org.uk
In that context what would you advise as a way of sorting the current crisis out in England and Wales?
Exactly what happened with mine recently.
Paid £30 to have my entire medical history printed off into a file and handed over to the police with seemingly zero consideration other than a GPs scribble.
My FEO raised this with me as being extremely alarming during their home visit, but after several cups of tea and a chin wag was personally satisfied and fortunately it didn’t cause any delays in my FAC being issued.
It does beg the question why this system is in place, as it is clearly being interpreted, managed and charged to vastly different proportions.
Would it really be that difficult to standardise with a simple framework for GPs to follow?!
Conor O'Gorman
Well-Known Member
Thanks. What in that context would you define as a fight that would have kept you from dropping out? Genuine question. Interested in your views and sorry that you felt the need to drop out of BASC and I will feed that back.
Also interested to know, if you don't mind me asking, did you move to another organisation that was carrying out this fight?
2 weeks wait for me £60.
CPSA . For cover legal insurance . NGA . For general cover ( not needed so far) This Connor is just to make your organisation aware your on a stickey wicket. BASC is not taken seriously by any government body.
As you say before they only checked with an applicants GP if the applicant declared a medical condition that required further investigation which was far, far fewer than the situation now where every application requires a GP report.
The funds required for the FLDs to administer the system will come from us the applicants. Is it not better we pay the GP rather than pay for both the GP and x hours of FLD time to liaise with the GP.
A hypothetical question, but one to which you must already know the hypothetical answer: did BASC not 'work with' the HO to bring in to operation rules which mean that if I refuse to pay some GP or other to review my notes, I wouldn't get my certificates?
It is indeed an interesting ethical question, whether it would be unprincipled or hypocritical of me to pay up given my stance.
I'm no moral philosopher - so I'll just leave that question with the observation that as an employee of BASC, I'm not sure you're in a good position to ask it.
How to 'sort out' the 'crisis'? A few thoughts...
1. Our organisations must stop believing that the Police and the HO are their friends. They are cleverer and more slippery than you seem to imagine, and they don't like lawfully-held firearms.
2. In that context, don't feel flattered when they ask you for help. They only want your help to make things worse for us, so it's time to start disappointing them rather than (as currently) your members.
3. Point out that the fee an applicant pays on application or renewal of certificates is a statutory one, and in the interests of fair application of the law applicants should not have to pay additional fees of any kind. That is the way it has been hitherto, and with good reason.
4. Point out that if it is cost-effective and useful for public safety for every applicants' GP records to be reviewed, then that process should be taken in hand by the FLDs.
5. The FLDs locally or nationally should negotiate what they consider a fair price with the GPs and pay it. If a GP refuses, the FLD could send the GP notes to MedCert (or similar). We already give the FLD permission to ask the GP for this information, I think.
6. Medical chicanery aside, it sounds to me as though the 'crisis' is based largely on FLDs being understaffed - the remedy for which would seem to be a combination of reducing unnecessary work ('territorial restriction'-related land visits, servicing the discretionary conditions industry etc.) and giving them money for more staff.
7. It is not the responsibility of users of the FLD service to stump up to fund chronically the under-resourced and unnecessarily-overworked departments. These department exist for the safety of the public: not, as most of us are only too aware, for the convenience of lawful users of firearms.
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in an ideal would to stop another Plymouth but in reality to cover the chiefs Constables backside.
I'd say not. We pay the statutory fee.
The problem here is that now we have a precedent that the FLDs can ask for reports which, unless we pay for them, they can refuse to grant or renew. At then moment it's generally just GPs reports. In some cases, it might be other specialists as well. And next...
Get it all back within the FLDs and fund them properly to do it. The FLDs are part of the Police, serving the public good by doing what the Firearms Act says they should. They are not there for the benefit of shooters, so our contribution has always been one fairly measured and determined by statute - and that's how it should remain.
hear what you are saying but the horse has already bolted, and the process is now fully embedded within the HO statutory guidance.
If my memory is correct Scotland was first then one by one other police services joined in, BASC knew what was happing as it was championed via the NPCC FELWG meetings.
However BASCs legal advice, never shared with members, was they would not win a judicial review.
The rest is history.
lots of interesting reading, going back to 2016
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