Fitness to Drive awareness for Resident Doctors

At the end of June we ran an information based training session for Resident Doctors in partnership with the William Merritt Centre and a Medical Educator for GP training.

A Resident Doctor is someone who has qualified from medical school but is now undergoing further training in a specific field. The people we met with were training to become GPs.

The aim of the session was to raise awareness of the options for fitness to drive assessments, hopefully enabling more people to safely keep their driving licence whilst also supporting those who may need to give up their licence temporarily or permanently.

During the three hour session, we covered what happens at a fitness to drive assessment, what the outcomes may be, what types of adaptations are available, and how GPs can refer patients for an assessment.

The attendees had chance to drive an adapted simulator, go through pre-driving cognitive and physical assessments, take part in a quiz covering DVLA rulings on medical situations and to also discuss some of the experiences of speaking with patients around stopping driving.

The training was delivered from a neutral perspective, delivering industry-wide advice and information in the hope that more people have a clearer route to understanding their options for driving when medical situations arise.