Guidance

Certificates of medical fitness - answering fishermens' questions

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency answers the questions we've received about how to get a certificate of medical fitness, and why it's important.

From:
Maritime and Coastguard Agency
Published
24 March 2023
Last updated
1 May 2024 — See all updates

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Your certificate of medical fitness questions answered

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By the end of November 2023, fishermen working on a UK vessel must have a certificate of medical fitness – either the ML5 or ENG1.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) advertised the requirement earlier this year, and since then we have received lots of your questions, thoughts and feedback.

We want you to be as prepared as possible ahead of the requirement coming into force, so we’ve created guidance to answer all of your medical certificate questions.

Updates to this page

Published 24 March 2023
Last updated 1 May 2024 + show all updates

  1. Your certificate of medical fitness questions answered, has been updated at sections 10, 11 and 12 to reflect the close of the GFR 30 April 2024 deadline.

  2. section 3, changed to reflect introduction of MSN 1915

  3. Updated Q3, Q10, Q11, and deleted Q14 re-numbering later items.

  4. Amendment to text within Question 16.

  5. Updated to question 16 on the ML5 side of the table in the 6th row.

  6. Updated to advise of the maximum validity of an ML5 and the inclusion of additional information at question 17.

  7. Questions 15 and 16 added

  8. First published.

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