Trading Standards probes HGV medicals sold from vans across UK

A cut-price HGV medical service that promised tests for “just under £60” is at the centre of a Trading Standards probe over whether bogus fitness checks put unsafe commercial drivers on the road. Swansea Council says Doctors on Wheels Ltd is thought to have processed thousands of D4 certificates for lorry and bus licence applicants and existing licence holders, undercutting legitimate providers while handling medicals from mobile units and the backs of vans.

The D4 form is the medical examination report required for a lorry or bus driving licence, and it sits at the heart of the Group 2 system used for HGV and PSV drivers. Those standards are stricter than the rules for ordinary motorists, because licensing bodies rely on the medical to decide whether a driver is fit to operate heavy goods vehicles. In practice, that means the difference between a valid clearance and a potentially dangerous driver staying behind the wheel.

Three undercover investigators posing as HGV applicants booked tests online in 2019 and attended different sites in Swindon, Huddersfield and Leicester. Trading Standards said staff in each van carried out eye tests, blood pressure checks and questionnaires, yet the completed paperwork misleadingly identified the same doctor at all three locations. Covert recordings suggested workers were helping patients with eye-test answers and, in one case, letting a person take parts of a form home to fill in themselves.

The court also heard that the business used a stamp with a doctor’s signature printed on it to process dozens of medicals a day, while unqualified staff were involved in the operation. Investigators said one driver was given a “full pass” despite being profoundly deaf, and another was recorded as having perfect vision despite having a glass eye. One investigator said people known to the DVLA as having health conditions were being signed off as fit.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency raised concerns in March 2019, and by 20 June 2019 it had stopped accepting Doctors on Wheels D4 medicals. Swansea Council’s Rhys Harries said the DVLA’s anomaly detection helped prevent a much more serious road-safety problem. In April 2026, Andrew Eburne, 51, of Hill Rise, Burbage, Hinckley, was found guilty of operating a fraudulent business, Doctors on Wheels Ltd, while five other defendants were cleared. Judge Huw Rees said Eburne had “put profit before safety.”