On Monday Grant Davis represented the London Cab Drivers Club at a meeting with Tfl, in regards to the on going situation with Driver medicals.
This all stems from the expose in The Sun Newspaper where certain PH drivers were actually “buying” their medicals without undertaking the proper medical tests. In some cases, it was alleged that medical checks were being carried out on-line.
Tfl are now looking to outsource the medicals to as of yet a “unknown” private medical provider and thus bring parity with both sides of the industry where we all would have to take the exact same medical examination.
At present, the cost of these medicals will be in the region (they say) of between £100 – 150 and the provider must have locations around London and also provide parking facilities. As we’ve seen with TfL regarding PH Licence costs, this price could change dramatically once established.
At Monday’s meeting, Tfl went on to say that the return of unsatisfactory medical forms is at 60% and they hope by outsourcing, this will be cut?
It was revealed in the Sin last year that many private hire drivers had submitted unsatisfactory medical firms but it is our belief, that as with the 13,000 fake DBS criminal record checks TfLTPH took no action in regards to the medicals.
Grant Davis said the LCDC, are not comfortable with this! The majority of taxi drivers have a properly registered GP and again this appears to be the result of a knee jerk reaction to the amount of abuse by PH drivers who have lived in the U.K. for such a short space of time. These drivers may not even have a GP, but they want to get a PH licence in London and having a medical is a requisite to do so.
Grant went on to say, the Club feels there is a lot more work to be done on this issue.
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