Fire arms licensing department/ medical condition

[icanshootwell]

I will try and make this not to complicated.

I renewed my licence the other day, came in the post 2 weeks ago, nice and simple so far,
This morning had a letter from my Doctors practice with an invoice attached for £48.
Apparently the fire arms department are requesting from my doctor if i have ever had any medical history they need to know about. As the answer to this is NO, my doctors do not need to respond to the firm arms department.(they have 21 days to respond)
So why did they feel they had to invoice me for a service they have not done? a total con maybe.
I have googled this and found some practices charging £90.
Just letting people know so they don,t just pay this invoice, i rang my doctor department and put them in there place with some facts, what saddens me is you dont expect this from doc,s practice.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

Private or NHS practise?

 

[Kidds]

Had this with my renewal, just ignored it and the lisence came through anyway .They wanted £90 and haven't even seen me in 15 years! How could they decide if I was fit or not .

Apparently Cheshire police are making it compulsory .

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index...al-doctors-surgery.131096/page-3#post-2765880

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Had this with my renewal, just ignored it and the licence came through anyway

The police are not allowed to take a non-reply as an indication of a reason to decline a renewal.

 

[icanshootwell]

Private or NHS practise?

NHS, but should,t matter really.

 

[icanshootwell]

The police are not allowed to take a non-reply as an indication of a reason to decline a renewal.

So why did i receive my licence back before the doc,s invoice?

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Because if the Doc just throws your paperwork in the bin, the police will grant your renewal anyway

If the police had to wait until the Doc replied to them, and the Doc had to wait till you'd paid for the report, hundreds of certificates would be lapsing every year.

No GP's surgery in the country has the resources to be dealing with this extra paperwork thrust upon them by the police & Home Office.

 

[icanshootwell]

But why would they do that if there,s an easy £48 to be made, the problem here is a lot would pay it.

 

[Pieces_of_Eight]

Admin in the NHS (and police) is expensive and time consuming, with very little interconnection between different health trusts (and police forces) which is bonkers in this digital age.

Even 20 minutes spent finding your details and records will have cost the NHS time and money.

HGV medicals are similar, but no pass = no licence.

(Even though you can get a simple pass from any Doc, not just your own GP )

 

[slackjawedyokel]

£48 quid does seem excessive if you have a brief medical history so checking would just involve physically finding your notes, having a flick through them, maybe having a check through online records about you and dashing off a 1 line letter (or email) back to the firearms officer involved.

If you have a longer history (a few illnesses, maybe some operations, stays in hospital etc), your notes will rapidly get quite thick and take some time to go through. Yes YOU know that you’ve never had depression or mental illnesses, alcoholism etc but your doctor may not and it takes time to comb through your notes.

What would you expect to pay for, say half an hour of time from a similarly qualified professional, say a solicitor?

GPs are privately owned. They do work for the NHS but they do not receive funding for doing gun license checks from other sources.

This is a frequent source of annoyance and conflict. Maybe it would be better just to charge everyone a flat fee (say £20) as part of your renewal. Then those with brief histories will be subsidising those with thicker sets of notes.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

Also, I just got my gun certs through this week; no idea if I’ll be getting a bill through from my GPs. Will just have to grin and bear it if so.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

NHS, but should,t matter really.

You stand a better chance of not getting charged, or getting charged less at a NHS surgery. A fully private practise charges for everything under the sun. A bill would be practically guaranteed.

 

[Farfrae]

Why exactly should a GP not charge, for non NHS work, where he is asked for a professional opinion on your health?

 

[slackjawedyokel]

It’s funny; I’ve never seen anyone complaining cos they have to pay several tens of pounds for a gun license- it’s only the bit their doctor is asked to do that people complain about.

When it comes down to it, why have I just paid the police several tens of pounds? I mean they didn’t even come out to check my guns or cabinet this time so all they’ve done is a bit of admin. I don’t get too annoyed about it though cos it’s accepted you pay for a gun license but for some reason people are annoyed that their doctor charges for doing gun license admin that the police require.

 

[icanshootwell]

I feel i need to emphasize, the doc only needs to respond to the fire arms dep if he or she feels there is a medical history they need to be aware of. So in my case sfa, therefore no charge should be applied.
I won,t be paying mine and its been filed in the appropriate place.

 

[slackjawedyokel]

Yes but although that saves them the time to write a one line email back to the licensing officer, it does not mean they’ve done no work. I presume that the fact that they’ve invoiced you means that a doctor has combed through your notes to look for anything worrying.

 

[Farfrae]

I feel i need to emphasize, the doc only needs to respond to the fire arms dep if he or she feels there is a medical history they need to be aware of.

And to do that would have to spend a considerable period of time going through your records and have to make a decision as to whether it might be relevant or not. Glad you feel your doctor is not worthy of being paid for his/her work

 

[Dry Rot]

No bill from the NHS (or anyone else!) for any health report issued to the police in my case. But then they probably wouldn't dare!

 

[icanshootwell]

And to do that would have to spend a considerable period of time going through your records and have to make a decision as to whether it might be relevant or not. Glad you feel your doctor is not worthy of being paid for his/her work

If people like you are happy to pay it, then carry on, if you think my doc has spent more a few minutes on this, you are more gullible than i could ever imagined. I posted on here to let people know what they might expect when renewing there gun licence, i won,t bother next time.