Licence to Wait: DVLA’s Medical Licence Delays Hit 14 Weeks as Drivers Are Left in Limbo

Hundreds of thousands of UK drivers waiting for medical driving licence decisions have spent months trapped in a backlog that reached 14 weeks at its worst, after the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency struggled under the weight of rising application numbers, an ageing IT system that needed replacing, and a shortage of specialist caseworkers. While the DVLA has now deployed new technology and taken on additional staff, medical licence applicants are still waiting an average of nearly 12 weeks as of April 2026. For anyone affected, understanding how the system works and what steps you can take is essential.

How the Backlog Built Up

The delays are not new, but they reached a peak in February 2026 when the average time to decide on a medical driving licence case hit 71.4 working days, the equivalent of roughly 14 calendar weeks. Transport minister Simon Lightwood told the House of Commons on 23 April 2026 that the pressure on the system had multiple causes. “That pressure was compounded by the need to replace a legacy IT system,” he said. “Introducing a modern casework system was essential, but it required investment, experienced staff input and training.”

The contrast with non-medical applications is striking. For drivers applying to renew or update a standard licence without any medical declaration requirement, the DVLA took an average of just 1.2 working days to process applications between January and mid-April 2026. The entire backlog problem sits within the medical casework stream, where decisions involve gathering information from GPs, consultants and other medical professionals before a licence can be granted or refused.

The volume of medical cases has grown significantly in recent years, partly because the UK has an ageing driving population and partly because awareness of the DVLA’s requirements around medical conditions has increased. Drivers in the UK are legally obliged to notify the DVLA if they develop certain medical conditions, including epilepsy, diabetes requiring insulin, heart conditions, vision impairments and a range of neurological and psychiatric diagnoses. When a notification is made, the licence is typically revoked pending an assessment, and the applicant cannot legally drive until the new licence is issued.

The Human Cost of the Delays

For drivers whose licences have been put under review, the delay is not just an inconvenience. It can mean months unable to get to work, take children to school or reach medical appointments. Vikki Slade, the Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole who secured the parliamentary debate on DVLA reform on 23 April 2026, described the situation in blunt terms. “Unless someone chases their MP, who then chases the DVLA and pushes the constituent to chase their clinician, cases simply stall,” she told the Commons. “This is not a functioning public service.”

Slade raised the case of a constituent named Ellie, who had experienced symptoms consistent with epilepsy but whose symptoms had stopped following treatment and whose consultant had put in writing that she was fit to drive. Rather than receiving a prompt decision, Ellie received a call from the DVLA asking about her case six months after the initial referral. The agency then revoked her licence without informing her directly, which she discovered some time later. When she contacted the DVLA, she was told the revocation was due to a missing medical questionnaire that she said she had never received. She was then told her original paperwork had been lost. At the time of the debate, she was still trying to resolve the matter more than a year after the process began.

Cases like Ellie’s illustrate the practical failure at the heart of the system: unless an applicant actively and persistently chases their own case, and has the knowledge or connections to escalate it, it can stall indefinitely. The DVLA has not disputed that such outcomes occur.

What the DVLA Is Doing to Fix It

Since September 2025, the DVLA has processed new and renewed medical cases through a new Drivers Medical Casework System, built by Kerv Communications using Microsoft Dynamics 365. The system uses decision trees to recommend decisions on individual cases, reducing the manual workload on caseworkers and accelerating straightforward decisions. According to a disclosure document published by the DVLA, the system is now fully operational.

On 31 March 2026, the DVLA opened an online portal through which drivers can report new medical conditions and apply for new and renewed licences. The portal uses email as the primary communication channel, partly because the law requires certain communications to take place in writing. Previously, much of this process was handled by post, adding delays.

The agency has also hired 43 additional medical caseworkers, with 22 more joining imminently at the time of the parliamentary debate. Lightwood told the House: “I am sorry to all those who have been impacted by the delays. We are going to put things right, we are putting things right.” He confirmed that by April 2026, the average decision time for medical cases had fallen from 71.4 working days in February to 56.6 working days, a reduction of around two weeks but still far above the agency’s own service standards.

The DVLA’s contact centre handled 8,929,400 queries in the 2025/26 financial year. Of those, 498,780 were resolved by an always-on automated chatbot “without any human intervention,” according to a parliamentary answer from Lightwood, with webchat enquiries taking around 90 seconds less to resolve than telephone calls.

What You Should Do If You Are Affected

If you are waiting for a medical licence decision from the DVLA and the process has stalled, there are practical steps available to you.

Start by using the DVLA’s online portal, introduced on 31 March 2026, to check the status of your application and submit any outstanding information. If you submitted paperwork before the portal existed and have heard nothing, contact the DVLA medical enquiries team by email or telephone and request a status update in writing, so you have a record of the response.

If you have a medical professional involved in your case, chase them directly to confirm they have responded to any DVLA request for information. The DVLA has said that many delays occur at this stage, where the agency is waiting on GPs or hospital consultants who have not yet replied. A proactive letter from your consultant confirming fitness to drive, sent both to the DVLA and copied to you, can help move things along.

If your case has been stalled for more than 13 weeks without a decision and you have followed up without result, contact your MP and ask them to raise the matter formally with the DVLA. Parliamentary enquiries do not guarantee a faster outcome, but Slade’s evidence to the Commons suggests they can prompt action in stuck cases.

If you have had your licence revoked during the review process, you cannot legally drive until the new licence is issued, regardless of how long the wait takes. Driving without a valid licence while under medical review is a criminal offence, carries a fine of up to £1,000 and can affect insurance, so the risk is not worth taking.

The DVLA has said it expects processing times to continue falling as the new casework system beds in and more caseworkers come online. However, with 56.6 working days still the average as of April 2026, drivers entering the medical licence process now should plan for a wait of at least two to three months before a decision arrives.

Sources:

• The Register: DVLA’s 14-week driving licence fiasco
• House of Commons Library: Reform of the DVLA
• GOV.UK: DVLA services update