I’m DVLA’s relationship manager for medical charities and I work in our Corporate Services Team. It was set up just over 3 years ago to gain a better understanding of our corporate customers’ needs. 

We work closely with a variety of stakeholders on anything from the launch of new services, to raising awareness of what drivers need to do if they have a medical condition. We currently work closely with around 15 key medical charities.

How it all started…

In 2016 we invited some key medical charities to DVLA to talk about our drivers medical work. It was a great opportunity to share views, discuss current topics and build on the work we’ve done to develop a service for drivers to tell us about a medical condition. It’s proved to be of real benefit to everyone involved. Our charity forum now meets every 6 months with members representing customers affected by medical conditions that could impact on their ability to drive.

Listening to views

We’ve discussed how people maintain mobility if they need to give up their driving licence and carrying out driving assessments for people wanting to understand how their illness affects their driving. This gives us real insight into the challenges drivers, with specific medical conditions, face on a daily basis. We also talked about how we help customers better understand how their condition affects their driving by directing drivers to charity websites.

Working together

We shared what we’re doing to improve some of our customer facing letters and how the charities help us gather valuable insight. All the charities are supportive and we’re working with them to survey some of their customers to find out more.

We also discussed how we could work together to understand why young people are reluctant to tell us about their medical condition. Towards the end we also talked about geographical hot spots and the most common medical conditions we’re told about.

Most people who report a medical condition keep their licence

Working closely with charities in this way should help them support their members and encourage them to be confident in telling us about a medical condition. It will also help us in our aim to encourage anyone with a medical condition to have all the information they need to continue driving and, make sure all drivers are safe on our roads.

Do you want to get involved?

We’re looking for lay members for our medical panels. Medical panels help maintain and improve road safety, giving expert advice on relevant medical conditions and their impact on driving. You’d play an important role on the panel and be expected to challenge assumptions and ask for explanations of medical terms and concepts that aren’t clear. We’re recruiting this autumn – so, if you’ve an interest or some experience in diabetes, vision, neurological conditions, psychiatry or cardiovascular illness look out for our adverts on Charityjobs.co.uk and Civil Service Jobs.

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Last week I attended a launch event for the Employers for Carers Wales hub. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk about how we’ve been able to secure resources to set up the Carers Network at DVLA. This is a network run by staff for staff, whether they’re a carer, former carer or ally, it’s open to anyone.

As I see more and more people trying to balance work and care, I’m really committed to working with the group to make a difference to the lives of people who are trying to juggle their responsibilities. This is something that is likely to affect most of us at some time during our lives and linking up with others who are going through or have been through similar experiences can definitely help.

It’s important that our carers feel they have support in the workplace

I recognise the importance of providing a supportive workplace for the carers we employ. They have valuable skills that we want to retain.  It’s really important to help our staff cope with their caring responsibilities and at the same time feel engaged and productive in the work they do.

Alongside the help that’s always available here at DVLA, we created guides on our staff intranet for carers and their managers bringing all our policies into one place and signposting them to external support organisations.

It’s important too, that carers feel they’re not alone. Through our regular drop in sessions and very popular coffee mornings people can come together to share their stories and experiences or just pop in and listen.

We’ve worked hard at DVLA to create a safe and supportive environment for all of our employees. If DVLA is somewhere you’d like to work…

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