Medical reporting duty proposed for certificate holders: the sector picture
A Government commitment to require certificate holders to tell police when they see a doctor other than their own general practitioner (GP) would touch every discipline, from game and clay to stalking and airgun shooting. Here is the sector overview
Credit: Getty Images
A commitment made in a Commons committee room on 2 July is set to touch every discipline in shooting sport. Health minister Karin Smyth told Members of Parliament (MPs) scrutinising the Health Bill that the Government intends to require firearms and shotgun certificate holders to tell the police whenever they consult a doctor who is not their own GP, a duty that would attach to the certificate itself rather than to any one branch of the sport.
What did the minister tell the Health Bill committee?
“The Government also intend to make a statutory instrument to require licence holders to inform the police if they consult a third-party medical practitioner who is not their GP,” the minister told the Public Bill Committee. Applicants, she added, “must now indicate whether they have seen a medical practitioner other than their GP”. The new duty would sit alongside the existing digital marker system, under which a certificate holder’s GP record is flagged so that police can be alerted to relevant changes in the person’s health.
The commitment came as MPs debated amendment 71, tabled in the name of Helen Maguire and moved by Dr Danny Chambers, the Liberal Democrat MP for Winchester. It would have made firearms medical markers visible to all relevant health workers under the planned single patient record. Dr Chambers cited a survey by the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners which, he said, found that 87% of existing certificate holders believe GPs should tell police about health issues that could affect safe gun ownership. The amendment was withdrawn by leave.
Why would the duty reach every discipline?
Because the proposed duty follows the certificate, not the discipline, it would apply in the same way to the game shooter, the clay shooter, the stalker and any airgunner who holds a certificate. For the show community, that is nearly everyone: most visitors to the British Shooting Show hold a certificate or are applying for one, and a change to what the certificate requires is a change to their year, whatever they shoot.
Conservative MP Gregory Stafford noted that mandatory markers were backed by “organisations such as the British Association for Shooting and Conservation and the Countryside Alliance”, but warned against making licence status widely visible. “The security and safety of the individual who holds the firearms licence, and indeed of anybody else in the vicinity, is paramount,” he said, adding that people should generally not be able to know where guns are kept because it “could be a security risk”.
What happens next
The statutory instrument has not yet been published, and its timing depends on when it is laid before Parliament, so nothing changes for certificate holders today. The Health Bill continues its passage through committee, and the sector’s organisations will be reading the detail closely when the instrument appears. The full story is on ShootingUK, linked below.
Useful links
Firearms licence holders face new duty to report non-GP doctors (ShootingUK, the full story)