Firearms
Updated guidance for Firearms Licensing - 1st November 2021
Following the tragic events in Plymouth, new Firearms Licensing Guidance has been issued by the Home Office and came into force on 1st November. This had been under consideration and consultation for some time. The relevant sections regarding medical suitability start on page 6 section 2.24 and continue through to page 10 section 2.43. Guidance to the police - fitness to be entrusted with a firearm . There is now a statutory obligation for a medical report from a suitably qualified GMC registered doctor for every person who applies for a grant or renewal of a firearms or shotgun certificate. The responsibility for the decision about a person’s suitability to be granted a certificate remains with the police as the guidance makes clear. The police need to consider the medical report as part of the application process and to be considered with all other information in the application process plus that from other relevant enquiries conducted by the police. The Domestic Abuse Act now makes this an important consideration too. The BMA contributed to the guidance. We maintain that it is private work so GPs can charge the patient a fee, refuse the work or may object on conscientious grounds.
Firearms licensing - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) Updated 1 November 2021
After three months of very detailed and hard work which has necessitated garnering expertise from across contracts and ethics and taking QC opinion on two separate occasions, I am very pleased to be able to circulatethe BMA's new guidance on firearms licensing along with a blog from me that will be published at launch on Friday.
.In reaching this new guidance the T&F group has debated all aspects of licensing exhaustively and we are happy that our advice falls within all ethical and legal opinion we have received. We expect that external organisations may challenge or question the validity of our position but I am minded that the T&F group has given unanimous support for this guidance which we hope will provide much needed clarity and safety for professionals and LMCs alike.
The T&F group was set up with the remit of producing safe, ethical and legal guidance relating to the current system and at publication we will have discharged that responsibility. However, both GPC and the Professional Fees Committee (PFC) will continue to engage with the Home Office to press for improvements to a system that I know causes grave anxieties for many of us.
I would like to express my thanks to the members of the T&F Group, BMA staff and to members of PFC who have input into this process. I am grateful to Dr Peter Holden, Chair of PFC, for his support and look forward to taking this issue forward with him on behalf of both GPC and PFC.
Mark Sanford-Wood
BMA Firearms T&F Group Lead
