Practices are to get digital flags on patient records alerting them to patients who have firearms licences, it was announced today.

The move was welcomed by senior GPs today as it allows doctors to take action if they come across patients who are unsafe to keep firearms. Under the plans practices will not immediately get access to a full database of licence holders. Instead, firearms owners will be added as they gain new licences or renew licences.

GP Dr Peter Holden, British Medical Association lead for firearms policy, said: “For decades now, the BMA has been pushing for an active flagging system within patients’ records that is robust, clear and standardised across the country, and the new digital marker is a positive step in the right direction of improving the contribution GPs make to the licensing process.

“However, the public should be under no illusion that this will be an overnight solution. This new scheme will apply only to new applicants or people renewing their licences, so it will take up to five years before all licensed gun owners are included within this framework. Of course, when there is a diagnosis of concern, GPs will continue to use all of the information in front of them and where there is a danger to the wider public or the patient themselves, they will alert authorities.

“The introduction of the marker though must not imply that the buck for public safety stops with the GP; as the police have acknowledged, they themselves are ultimately responsible for firearms licensing. But as this new marker is rolled out, we encourage GPs to build on existing relationships with local forces to help further protect public safety.”