I agree entirely.
Being someone who has this slightly worrisome period between being NATS fit and CAA fit - apparently the CAA medical will be sometime after our basic course..!
I asked - and seemingly the NATS one is stricter so if you pass that you will "definitely" pass the CAA one..
Why not send everyone to gatwick? The reason I was given was cost.. if they want to fail someone theyd rather do it in house than it cost them £400 or however much it is. Also with the high volume of applicants there may well not be enough time between recruitment and start-of-course for everyone to get CAA ones booked in.
The NATS one is "a medical that checks you'll be fit for your whole career" whereas the CAA one is "for the next 2 years".. which is a valid point, they're probably checking more things at the NATS ones. Things like eyesight tolerances are much tighter for the NATS than CAA, so that's why they can't send everyone straight to Gatwick I suppose.
It's still very annoying!