Objectives

1. To determine whether neurosurgical staff are aware of which of the common conditions seen have driving restrictions.

2. To determine whether neurosurgical staff are aware of what they are able to do within current regulations if a patient refuses to comply with DVLA advice given.

3. To build a case for development of more ways for the DMG and medical professionals to engage.

Design Observational questionnaire-based study.

Subjects Neurosurgery staff at the Royal London Hospital – doctors and senior nurses.

Methods Responses collated and represented as percentages.

Results 37 health care professional took part. 10% uncertain of what to do if advice on driving was not complied with 20% responded no to if confidentiality could be breached in certain cases where it is warranted. 70% responded yes to if confidentiality could be breached in certain cases where it is warranted. 45% unaware of DVLA guidelines for intra-cranial tumours 15% full knowledge of DVLA requirements.

Conclusions Annually, over 1.25 million people die because of a road traffic crash globally (WHO fact sheet). An estimated 20–50 million suffer non-fatal injuries, with many developing significant disabilities as a result. It is thus not surprising that one of the newly adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a target of halving the global number of deaths and injuries from road traffic crashes by 2020 – less than 2 years away. It has adopted the safe systems approach to help achieve this target, some cornerstones of which are safe road user and adequate law traffic law enforcement which medical personnel have a key role in. Although clinicians are already involved with this, medical standards are continually reviewed/updated when indicated considering recent developments in traffic medicine and seminal events. In October 2016 for instance, the Drivers’ Medical Group (DMG received negative press following a parliamentary and health service ombudsman report. One area identified for improvement was DMG’s processes for engaging with the medical profession. In the same year, the then 25 year old guidance for medicals professional was updated. This study aims to assess the familiarity of neurosurgical clinicians (junior doctors and consultants) and senior neurosurgical nurses with the current DVLA requirements for neurosurgical patients. The goal is to show that the changes to the regulations that occur following seminal events are sometimes not apparent to clinicians involved in the field. We hope that this will help build a case for establishing a system where the DMG and medical professionals are more engaged (for example via clinical nurse specialists who can go on to update their specialty on changes relevant to their field when they occur). Our study has demonstrated suboptimal awareness and poor understanding of the current DVLA regulations. In our study, we have highlighted the importance of improving communication between clinicians and the DMG and developing novel ways to keep medical professionals up to date and continuously engaged with the DMG.