General Dental Services Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993

Amount and time of payments

27.—(1) A Board to whom an application for payments is made in accordance with regulation 26 shall, having made such enquiries as it considers relevant, if satisfied that the claimant is entitled to payments by virtue of regulation 25, determine that he shall, in respect of any period for which he is so entitled, receive payments which, subject to paragraphs (2) to (6), shall be of the following amounts—

(a) where his registration is suspended by a direction or an order of the Health Committee—

(i) £2,984 per month for each of the first 6 months for which payments are made to him, whether in respect of that or a previous period of such suspension and whether or not those 6 months form a continuous period, and

(ii) £1,492 per month thereafter;

(b) where his registration is suspended by an interim suspension order—

(i) where the period of interim suspension ends with an order for erasure or immediate suspension, £1,492 per month, and

(ii) in any other case, £2,984 per month.

(2) Where in the period of 2 years immediately preceding the suspension date the total amount of a claimant's gross fees received for the provision of general dental services was less than £ 142,242, the amount of payments made to him shall (subject to any further reduction under paragraph (3)) be the same proportion of the amount otherwise payable in accordance with paragraph (1) as that total amount of fees is of £142,242.

(3) Where a claimant's name was included in the dental list for a period of less than 2 years immediately preceding the suspension date the amount of payments made to him shall be the same proportion of the amount otherwise payable in accordance with paragraph (1) or paragraph (2) as the number of complete months in that lesser period is of 24.

(4) Where a claimant's registration has been suspended by an interim suspension order or by a direction or an order of the Health Committee within a period of 2 years after the expiry of a previous period of any such suspension, the references in paragraphs (2) and (3) to the suspension date shall be taken as references to the suspension date as respects that previous period.

(5) Where the Board has to make a determination as to payments at a time when it does not know whether or not the period of a person's interim suspension will end with an order for erasure or immediate suspension, or whether or not he will be convicted of a criminal offence, it shall make that determination as though his period of interim suspension did so end or he was convicted of the offence; but it shall review that determination and determine that a claimant is entitled to an appropriate payment of any arrears if subsequently that period does not so end or he is not convicted of the offence.

(6) Where the Board determines that a claimant is entitled to a payment, it shall inform the Agency of the amount of that payment and authorise the Agency to make the payment to the claimant.

(7) The Agency shall make to the claimant any payments authorised by the Board.

(8) Payments under paragraph (7) shall be made monthly in arrears, and an appropriate proportion of the amount for a full month shall be paid where the claimant is entitled to a payment for part only of a month.