National Health Service Act 2006

Provision of particular services

3 Secretary of State’s duty as to provision of certain services

(1) The Secretary of State must provide throughout England, to such extent as he considers necessary to meet all reasonable requirements—

(a) hospital accommodation,

(b) other accommodation for the purpose of any service provided under this Act,

(c) medical, dental, ophthalmic, nursing and ambulance services,

(d) such other services or facilities for the care of pregnant women, women who are breastfeeding and young children as he considers are appropriate as part of the health service,

(e) such other services or facilities for the prevention of illness, the care of persons suffering from illness and the after-care of persons who have suffered from illness as he considers are appropriate as part of the health service,

(f) such other services or facilities as are required for the diagnosis and treatment of illness.

(2) For the purposes of the duty in subsection (1), services provided under—

(a) section 83(2) (primary medical services), section 99(2) (primary dental services) or section 115(4) (primary ophthalmic services), or

(b) a general medical services contract, a general dental services contract or a general ophthalmic services contract,

must be regarded as provided by the Secretary of State.

(3) This section does not affect Chapter 1 of Part 7 (pharmaceutical services).

4 High security psychiatric services

(1) The Secretary of State’s duty under section 1 includes a duty to provide hospital accommodation and services for persons who—

(a) are liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (c. 20), and

(b) in the opinion of the Secretary of State require treatment under conditions of high security on account of their dangerous, violent or criminal propensities.

(2) The hospital accommodation and services mentioned in subsection (1) are referred to in this section and paragraph 15 of Schedule 4 (NHS trusts) as “high security psychiatric services”.

(3) High security psychiatric services may be provided only at hospital premises at which services are provided only for the persons mentioned in subsection (1).

(4) “Hospital premises” means—

(a) a hospital, or

(b) any part of a hospital which is treated as a separate unit.

5 Other services

Schedule 1 makes further provision about the Secretary of State and services under this Act.