Driving Licences: Health

(asked on 13th July 2026) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many medical driving licence applications took longer than six months to be issued in a. 2023, b. 2024, c. 2025 and d. 2026 to date.


Answered by
Simon Lightwood Portrait
Simon Lightwood
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
This question was answered on 16th July 2026

The table below shows the number of medical driving licence applications where it took longer than six months for the licence to be issued in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 to date. Please note that the figures for each year include medical cases that were opened in that year but took more than six months for the medical investigation to be completed and the licence to be issued.

Year

Volume of cases where the licence took more than six months to be issued

Cases opened between 1 January and 31 December 2023

59,218

Cases opened between 1 January and 31 December 2024

67,419

Cases opened between 1 January and 31 December 2025

68,116

Cases opened between 1 January and 14 July 2026 (until 14 July 2026)

314

The figure in the final row of the table relates to applications received from 1 January 2026 that have taken longer than six months for a licence to be issued. As we are only in the seventh month of the year, that means relatively few applications received in 2026 have taken longer than six months to resolve, hence the lower figure.

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