Sorry for long post :-(
My 80 year old father has not been fit enough to drive for some time, in 2022 I reported him to DVLA and his licence was eventually revoked.
Since then he has been diagnosed with vascular dementia caused by two small strokes, not expected to get worse but he is still physically and cognitively unsafe to drive.
My father is unfortunately convinced he is safe to drive, that his licence was revoked due to an “administrative error” (I told him I’d reported him to the DVLA but he seems to have forgotten).
He keeps trying to raise it with medical professionals, wants to write to his MP about how outrageous it is. He’s obsessed with it.
While medical professionals v unlikely to support his application to get licence back their approach is always to kick the can down the road eg, “We’re waiting for further test results and need those before I can consider” or (new GP) “I will have to discuss your medical history with your usual GP.”
I understand this is probably the recommended method, because you often can’t rationalise with people with dementia and it’s better to try to distract them.
The issue is this: we have concerns that my Dad is going to get so fed up he just decides to drive anyway. He had already said “If they catch me it’s only a £1000 fine” and seems to think it’s a risk worth taking. He knows he would not be insured and that it would be illegal but doesn’t seem to care.
I’m getting slightly desperate as to what we can do. Hiding the keys may work once or twice but isn’t a permanent solution. If he does drive then yes, we can call the police, but clearly we really need to stop it getting to that point!
Does anyone have any advice please?
I’m wondering if we push the GP to tell him no, he cannot drive, and to put this in writing. That might make it harder for my dad to maintain his licence was revoked only because of an administrative error. But maybe it won’t.
The only advice I can find is again, try to distract the person but it’s just not sustainable to keep doing this, we need a more permanent approach.
I also wondered about trying to get the GP or adult social services to declare him as lacking in capacity to decide whether he can drive, but what good would that do unless we went down the full deprivation of liberty route and put him in a secure care home. (He is doing stints of respite care in a care home but I don’t think it’s a secure one).
Help, please!