It being a given that many of us are now going to have to work past age 65 whether we like it or not, I suggest it’s high time that the government extended the cut-off period for yearly medicals. Seems wrong to me that if we’re supposed to be healthy enough to work till age 70 and qualify for state pension, we should pay a premium in the form of extra medicals for the last five years of our working lives; especially now that the bar has been raised in many ways regarding actually passing the examination in the first place.
With that in mind, I’ve sent the following to my MP:
Good morning Simon
As we both know, state pension entitlement age is gradually being increased to compensate for a longer-lived and generally healthier society. I personally don’t have too much of an issue with this, a blind man could have seen it coming; unfortunately it’s exposed an anomaly in the current regulations for vocational driving licence holders which unintentionally discriminates unfairly against those who are effectively in the twilight of their careers.
As the law currently stands, such drivers are required to undergo regular medical examinations from age 45, in five yearly intervals until age 65 when the requirement becomes yearly. The actual criteria for passing, especially in regard to eyesight, have recently been tightened and I have no issues with that either. However, this has had the effect of increasing the charges made by both opticians and GP’s which has in a way exacerbated the problem. I should add, these medical examinations are paid for privately and are not available under the NHS.
After age 65 (or, in practice, after the expiry of the medical closest to that date) the requirement is upped to a yearly examination. In the case of many drivers, this is an expense which is either wholly or partly borne out of their own pockets and could therefore justifiably be described as a tax on employment. It cannot, surely, be right to have a situation where a worker is denied the right to a state pension by virtue of the day he was born on, yet at the same time be charged extra to do the job he or she has been doing for many years. At a time when there are major issues in the both the recruitment and retention of vocational drivers, particularly more experienced ones who are most affected by the current legislation, I would suggest that a relatively minor change in existing law, to bring medical examination requirements in line with actual retirement age or even simply increasing the cut-off to age 70 (which would make it much easier to administer) would prove to be of great benefit to both the workers and to their employers.
I would also like to see a cap on the fees charged by GP’s and opticians for these examinations; at the moment it is a licence for them to print money as a half-hour consultation can in some areas cost well over £100. That however is a separate issue and I do concede that imposing such a cap could easily bring up issues with avalability.
I would be most grateful if my observations could be passed on to the relevant Government departments for consideration.
