The Drivers Medical Group (DMG) of the UK Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) promote road safety by establishing whether drivers who have medical conditions are able to satisfy the medical standards required for safe driving. The Secretary of State has appointed a number of advisory panels to provide expert advice on the medical standards required for safe driving. There are separate panels covering the major medical conditions/disorders:
- Alcohol, drugs and substance misuse and driving
- Cardiovascular system and driving
- Diabetes mellitus and driving
- Disorders of the nervous system and driving
- Psychiatric disorders and driving
- Visual disorders and driving
These panels consist of experts in their medical field and meet on a regular basis to review the standards in the light of medical research and advancements in medical science.
WMHTAC/ARIF provided evidence based reports to these panels on topics identified as being of major importance at the interface of health and road safety between 2005 and 2008. The aim of these reports was to support the decision making process of the panels by highlighting the volume, quality and outcome of available research addressing a clearly defined problem. These reports encompass many of the features of systematic reviews such as addressing a defined question, systematic searches and identification of evidence, quality assessment of relevant research and unbiased reporting of evidence. The initial focus was to identify relevant secondary evidence/literature, ideally from well conducted systematic reviews. Where such evidence was not available – which was most situations – primary evidence was sought and synthesised using a process which concentrated on identifying and using a combination of the most relevant, robust and recent studies.
WMHTAC/ARIF provided training to the DMG in areas related to evidence synthesis and critical appraisal.
Copies of completed reports can be found on this website using the links to the left.