Provision of Health Services to Persons not Ordinarily Resident (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2008

EXPLANATORY NOTE

(This note is not part of the Order)

These regulations amend the Provision of Health Services to Persons not Ordinarily Resident Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005 (“the principal Regulations”), which make provision as to the entitlement of, and exemptions from charges for services forming part of health services which may be provided to visitors to Northern Ireland.

Regulation 2 inserts definitions of “authorised child” and “authorised companion”.

Regulations 3(a), 5 and 6 enable the Department to make a determination in certain circumstances to exempt specified visitors from charges for specified services for exceptional humanitarian reasons as well as exempt from charges for treatment, the need of which arose during the course of a visit, specified persons who accompany a person to whom an exemption for exceptional humanitarian reasons applies.

Regulation 3(b) amends regulation 3 of the principal Regulations so as to extend those services forming part of health services to a visitor who is a missionary and to meet the United Kingdom’s obligations in relation to medical treatment under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Human Trafficking.

The effect of meeting the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Human Trafficking is to extend the exemption from charges to visitors set out in regulation 4 of the principal Regulations, to visitors who the United Kingdom has reasonable grounds to believe are victims within the meaning of Article 4 of the Convention (this exemption is limited to the recovery and reflection period recognised in Article 13 of the Convention), and those who have been identified as victims.

Regulation 4 substitutes regulation 4 of the principal Regulations so as to provide that the spouse, civil partner or child of a visitor to whom paragraphs (h), (i), (j), (k), (r) or (s) of regulation 3 of the principal Regulations applies is also exempt from charges. However, in all other remaining cases, it continues to be a requirement that the spouse, civil partner or child of a visitor also lives on a permanent basis with the visitor in the United Kingdom in order to be entitled to those health services.

Regulation 7 omits Bulgaria and Romania from the list in Schedule 2 to the principal Regulations, as these countries have now become part of the European Union and therefore visitors from these countries will be dealt with under regulation 3 of the principal Regulations.