GP charging for blue badge letter - disabled child

[GPlettercharge]

Just checking if this is usual practice to be charged for a GP to write a supporting letter for a blue badge application for a disabled child?

My child is 5, has profound learning difficulties and ASD. Is non verbal and attends specialist school. Displays many challenging behaviours and has no sense of danger. Regularly refuses to walk and can also try to run into the road etc.

Our local authority are notoriously difficult in giving out blue badges and I was advised by his specialist school to get a supporting letter from the GP to apply for a blue badge as they’ve seen first hand how dangerous he is in a car park.

Our GP had an appt with him and has agreed to write the letter. However they have charged £40 for this.

Is this standard? It seems excessive, it’s not as though we’ve asked for a letter to support us going on holiday or something. This is for a disabled child!

I suppose I will pay it if necessary but wanted to check if this was the norm.

Thanks

I hope you haven't wasted your money, in our area councils make their own assessment and don't pay attention to GP letters. As others have said, fee very reasonable and probably well below market rate for a GP's time.

I was talking about ableism I've observed over several threads lately

You were on about 'people around here'. You very clearly linked it to what this thread was about.

Yes you also mentioned other threads too but you very clearly mentioned this one and the people on it to say people on here are cunts for wanting to be paid for work is disgusting and it is not ableism at all for wanting to be bloody paid for the job you do.

Does he have SLT provision in his EHCP? If so, the LA need to fund it. We're a different county but my son has SLT from a private therapist (discharged by NHS at about 3yrs) which is reimbursed to us via direct payments. Took a bit of to and fro to actually get the funds released but we got there in the end

OP are you getting any support with your blue badge application?
There are a range of online and face to face disability resources that you can tap into

He doesn’t unfortunately.We’re currently challenging his EHCP. They’ve refused to add it so we’re at the appeal stage.

We had to pay £1000 for a private SALT report to provide evidence for the ehcp and they still refused. It’s a total nightmare

Yes, we had a family dinner on Sunday. DS said he is now £450 plus VAT an hour. The partners in his firm are £620 plus VAT an hour. That’s £45 for 6 minutes (probably the smallest chargeable unit of time).

A doctor in our family was also there. I can’t believe somehow, they are a peculiar magnet for time wasters, but imo posters would be amazed at the non medical matters, patients go to see them about - including asking for money. A local school tells parents, they must get a letter from a GP if their child is off sick for anything - that’s probably what 1,500 pupils’ parents, asking for letters? The answer is no, unless the school pays for it.

Their view is that the GP system will collapse due to time wasters, and those patients are the ones, who won’t be able to afford private!

I am not saying OP is a time waster, as I’ve got the t shirt myself; but if the above experience is typical for GPs across the country, GPs would be drowning in the paperwork, if they agreed to every request for help on non medical matters.

Yes, I had to pay £50 for a letter to exclude DD who was unwell from PE

County Councils don't issue blue badges though. It's done at a local level. Have you applied before or are you just anticipating problems because of hearsay?

Yes they can charge. We were charged for a letter stating that ds's medication could be 'hidden' in food, that was needed when any paid carers gave medication.

Mine does - I’ ve just applied for DD1’s blue badge to be renewed by my county council.

Bollocks to that. I'd have told school they can paynfor the letter directly if they refuse to take my word as the parent.

It's an endless battle isn't it, I genuinely don't understand how a non verbal child can be in a specialist provision with no SLT provision. The whole system is a shambles isn't it.

If it gives some hope though, everything the private SLT recommended was added to my sons EHCP during the appeal process. It didn't get as far as court for us, it was agreed at the working document stage and that was for a child doing well in mainstream too

🤞🤞🤞

Is your son under the care of a community nursing team? I'm a children's community nurse, and the patients I support have similar care needs to your son. Part of my role is to write supporting letters etc for blue badges etc, and not something we charge families for. I'm based in the south west. Could you ask his lead consultant or specialist nurse to help with this instead of your GP? Sorry you're having such a difficult time, the daily battles families like yourself face is awful x