How much??

It seems that some GPs have a very lucrative side-line in the charges they demand for things like countersigning a passport photograph or providing medical evidence for something like a power of attorney form.  I had some experience of this when I needed a doctor's letter to support an insurance claim when my wife was ill (terminally as it turned out) and we had to cancel our holiday.  This was a good few years back of course, but I remember I had to pay £5.  There is no rhyme or reason here - some doctors will do this sort of thing for free, but otherwise they can charge what they like, and a recent case has hit the headlines where a mother had to pay £350 for a letter from her doctor to say that her special needs child was well enough to take part in the school's Christmas play.  There are calls for these charges to be regulated, but as this is non-NHS work, the question is, who is in a position to regulate?  The doctor has the whip hand - if you don't agree to pay, you don't get what it is you need - possibly desperately.  I seem to remember that I wasn't so bothered about having to pay as I was about the fact that it took the doctor something like three weeks to get round to doing it!