General Practitioners: Fees and Charges

(asked on 11th April 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made in preventing victims of domestic abuse from being charged by GPs for letters needed to access legal and other professional services.


This question was answered on 29th April 2019

We recognise the importance of tackling domestic abuse. General practitioners (GPs) can have an important role in supporting victims, including by providing evidence to enable them to access services. As providing evidence for victims of domestic abuse is not a contractual obligation for GPs they are able to charge, though not all will. GP provision of evidence was discussed as part of the 2019/20 GP contract negotiations and work is ongoing to improve the process.

Charges for provision of evidence of domestic abuse are not a specific requirement of the contractual relationship between GPs and the National Health Service. The Ministry of Justice and the General Practitioners Council are currently working together to clarify and improve the process for GPs and applicants in relation to evidence of domestic violence for legal aid applications.

The Government is absolutely clear that victims of domestic violence must have access to the help that they need, including access to legal aid. In January 2018 we made changes to legislation which introduced new forms of evidence, expanded the scope of existing evidence and completely removed the time limit from all forms of evidence for domestic violence. These changes aimed to make it easier for victims, or those at risk, of domestic violence to obtain and provide the evidence required to access legal aid, and reduce the risk of genuine victims not being able to obtain the required evidence.

These changes included broadening the categories of health professionals that can provide evidence to reduce the reliance on letters from GPs. Medical practitioners are able to confirm injuries or conditions consistent with domestic violence without suggesting that abuse is solely physical.

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