Blue Badge reform Survey

4. Assessments

4.1 On the question of assistance from Health Boards only two Local Authorities stated that their Health Board had no involvement. For one remote rural Local Authority, the reason given was that mobility assessments were not undertaken. The other Local Authority, an urban authority, gave no further details. This urban authority’s response is anomalous as it differs from all of the other Local Authorities within the same Health Board area, and also from the response given by the Health Board.

4.2 Most Health Boards undertake assessments for their Local Authorities, though there may have been some confusion about the question in the survey sent to Health Boards. For example one Health Board said that it did not, but then outlined how it provided the service. In one rural Health Board area, the assessments were carried out by independent GP contractors. Another rural Health Board does not undertake these assessments.

4.3 On the question of who carries out any mobility assessments the picture varies across Local Authorities. In 8 Local Authorities mobility assessments are undertaken for all applications, and are made by GPs. One Local Authority has a mobility assessment for all discretionary applications, which is undertaken by an Occupational Therapist. None of the remaining Local Authorities undertake mobility assessments for all applications. The majority have mobility GPs or other doctors assess a proportion, varying from 40% to 90%. Some of the remainder have a proportion assessed by an OT, varying from 0.1% of their applications to 25%. Physiotherapists are also mentioned as carrying out the mobility assessment in one Local Authority.

4.4 In common with the responses from the Local Authorities most mobility assessments are reported by Health Boards as being undertaken by GPs, predominantly by the applicants own GPs. Two Health Boards mention the use of OTs, one specifically suggesting this was at the behest of the Local Authority. Other staff mentioned include consultants, practice nurses and physiotherapists. All of these fit very closely with the responses from the Local Authorities.

4.5 The Health Boards report a mixed picture over whether the health professional sees the person on whom they are giving a mobility assessment. The majority of boards see the applicants at least some of the time, but this varies from 25% to 75% of the time. Only one Health Board reports that the applicant is not usually seen. However the picture is slightly more complex, as two remote rural Health Boards state that the patient is seen 75% of the time, but also suggest that where the applicant is well known to the GP that they would not need to see them. This suggestion of possible variance according to how well the doctor knows the applicant is mentioned by other Health Boards, but not picked up in their statistics, so it may be that it is common practice, but it is not possible to state this definitively from the limited responses to the survey.