Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many applications for driving licences from people with a notifiable medical condition are outstanding; what is the target time for responding to those applications; and when they expect response times to return to the levels they were prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of 16 November, there were 174,687 driving licence applications in progress where a medical condition must be investigated before a licence can be issued. This figure includes new applications, notifications and renewal applications as well as the more usual in progress figure, which is around 120,000 at any one time. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency expects to return to pre-pandemic turnaround times for medical applications by January 2023. All other backlogs were eliminated earlier this year.

Of the total of 174,687 applications in progress, 71,323 were received more than 90 days ago.

The length of time taken to deal with an application depends on the medical condition(s) involved and whether further information is required from third parties, for example NHS healthcare professionals, before a decision on whether to issue a licence can be made. Simple cases can often be processed quickly but some of the more complex cases with multiple medical conditions can take much longer. The DVLA’s business plan target for 2022/23 is to process 90% of new applications within 90 days from October 2022.

It is important to note that the majority of applicants renewing an existing licence will be able to continue driving while their application is being processed, providing they have not been told not to drive by a doctor or optician.