Aortic Stenosis And AIDS: How DVLA Has Quietly Rewritten Its Medical Forms For 2026

The DVLA has quietly rewritten the rulebook on which medical conditions you must report when you renew your driving licence, and most British drivers have no idea the list has changed. If you take one of the conditions newly added to a heart form and you fail to tell the agency, you could lose your licence, face an unlimited fine and find your insurance cancelled the moment something goes wrong on the road.

The agency has refreshed more than a dozen of its medical reporting forms in the past 18 months. Aortic stenosis has been added to the H1 and VOCH1 heart forms. AIDS has been removed from the G1 and G1V forms. Forms covering brain tumours, sleep apnoea, glaucoma, dementia, diabetes treated with insulin or sulphonylureas, pulmonary arterial hypertension and seizures have all been reissued with new wording. The full extent of the rewrite has barely registered with the public, and that is the problem.

What Has Actually Changed

The biggest single addition is aortic stenosis. It now appears on the H1 form for car and motorcycle drivers and on the VOCH1 form for lorry, bus and coach drivers. Aortic stenosis is a narrowing of the heart’s aortic valve. About one in 40 people over 65 has moderate or severe disease, and that share rises to roughly one in eight people over 75. The condition can cause blackouts, breathlessness and chest pain, all of which can incapacitate someone behind the wheel without warning.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency has also stripped AIDS from the G1 and G1V notifiable lists. The thinking is that modern antiretroviral treatment has changed the day-to-day functional impact of the condition for most people, and the older listing no longer reflects evidence on driving ability. The G1 and G1V forms still cover Addison’s disease, Alzheimer’s, ankylosing spondylitis, arthritis, brachial plexus injuries, learning difficulties, limb disability, paraplegia and spinal problems.

Other quieter updates include refreshed forms for narcolepsy and sleep apnoea (SL1 and SL1V), eyesight conditions including glaucoma and diplopia (V1 and V1V), and a new VDIAB1SG form specifically for diabetes treated with sulphonylureas or glinide tablets. Those drugs can cause hypoglycaemia, which the DVLA treats as a separate driving risk from insulin-treated diabetes.

Why You Should Care, Even If You Feel Fine

The legal obligation is set out in section 94 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. You must tell the DVLA about any “relevant” or “prospective” disability, or any worsening of a condition you have already declared. The maximum fine is £1,000 and that is the penalty for the paperwork failure alone. The consequences if you have a collision while not having declared a notifiable condition are far worse.

If a crash investigation establishes that an undeclared condition contributed to the incident, you can be prosecuted for driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence under section 87 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The Crown Prosecution Service can also pursue dangerous driving or causing death by dangerous driving where the medical condition was foreseeable. Sentences for causing death by dangerous driving were increased to a maximum of life imprisonment under the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.

The insurance position is equally bleak. Insurers ask whether you have a notifiable condition the DVLA has been told about. If you have not declared the condition to the agency, your policy will usually be voidable. The Association of British Insurers confirms that an undisclosed material change in health can be treated as a misrepresentation under the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012, with the insurer entitled to refuse claims and recover any payouts already made.

How Many Drivers Are Affected

The DVLA expects to handle more than 925,000 medical applications and notifications during the 2025 to 2026 financial year. That is more than 2,500 every day. The agency has been overhauling its medical casework system to clear backlogs that pushed average decision times beyond 14 weeks, but the medical team still issues hundreds of conditional licences each working day with restrictions such as one-year, two-year or three-year duration, or limits on heavy vehicle entitlement.

The headline number on the H1 update is harder to estimate because aortic stenosis is often diagnosed during routine cardiac investigations rather than after symptoms. Cardiologists estimate roughly 300,000 people in the UK have a clinically significant aortic stenosis diagnosis at any given time, with many more carrying a mild or moderate murmur that progresses with age. Anyone in that group who holds a driving licence is now expected to send the DVLA a completed H1 form, supported by their consultant’s details.

How To Check Whether You Need To Report Something

The full list of notifiable conditions is held at gov.uk/health-conditions-and-driving. It runs to more than 180 entries and is searchable. If your condition is on the list, the DVLA will direct you to the correct PDF form, which you fill in, sign, and return by post or email. The agency does not charge for processing a medical notification, and you can keep driving while the application is reviewed in most cases.

The decision tree depends on what the DVLA hears from your specialist. The agency typically writes to your GP or consultant, asks targeted questions, and may arrange an independent eye test or a driver assessment at a mobility centre. Decisions usually fall into one of three categories: a full licence renewal, a short-term medical licence valid for one, two or three years, or a refusal pending further investigation. Refusals carry the right of appeal to the magistrates’ court within six months under section 100 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.

The Most Common Mistakes Drivers Make

The DVLA’s medical helpline reports that the single biggest reason for delayed cases is missing consultant details on the form. The agency cannot write to a specialist who has not been named, so processing pauses. Drivers also frequently forget to enclose photocopies of their existing licence and a recent photograph for the photocard renewal that often follows a medical notification.

The second-biggest issue is over-reporting. Plenty of conditions do not need to be declared. Mild seasonal allergies, controlled high cholesterol, well-managed migraine without aura, and routine joint pain are not on the notifiable list. Sending unnecessary paperwork wastes time and clogs the agency’s queues, which makes things worse for those with conditions that truly need to be reported.

The third trap is failing to report a worsening of an existing condition. If you have already told the DVLA you have epilepsy and you then have a new seizure, you must contact the agency again. The same applies to a step-up in diabetes treatment, a new cardiac event, or a deterioration in vision. Each of these can trigger a fresh medical review and possibly a licence revocation if the criteria are no longer met.

What To Do If You Are Unsure

Anyone who is uncertain whether their condition is notifiable can ring the DVLA Medical Group on 0300 790 6806 between 8am and 5pm Monday to Friday, or 8am to 1pm on Saturdays. The agency confirms anonymously whether a particular diagnosis appears on the notifiable list and can send the right form by post if you cannot download it. Drivers who hold a Group 2 entitlement to drive lorries, buses or coaches face a stricter medical standard and should always confirm their position before renewing their entitlement.

For drivers approaching 70, the rules are different but the medical process is intertwined. You must renew your licence every three years from 70 onwards and self-certify on a D46P form that you meet the medical standards. Anyone in that group with a freshly added condition such as aortic stenosis must declare it at the next renewal as well as triggering a separate H1 notification at the time of diagnosis. The two processes run in parallel rather than replacing each other.

The blunt summary is that the DVLA’s silent rewrites of its medical forms over the past year have created a quiet legal trap. Drivers assume the list they last looked at is still current. It is not. Spending 20 minutes on the gov.uk medical conditions tool, ringing the agency if needed, and sending the right form is far cheaper than a £1,000 fine, a voided insurance policy and a courtroom argument about what you knew.

For more on driving with health conditions and ageing eyesight rules, see our recent reports on mandatory eye tests for over-70 drivers and the 14-week DVLA medical licence backlog.

Sources:

• GB News: DVLA medical condition form changes
• GOV.UK: Health conditions and driving
• GOV.UK: Aortic stenosis and driving
• GOV.UK: H1 reporting form
• House of Commons Library: Reform of the DVLA