The National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services Supplementary List) and (General Ophthalmic Services Amendment and Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2005

Amendment of regulation 9B

32.—(1) Regulation 9B of the Ophthalmic Regulations (criteria for decisions on removal)(1) shall be amended in accordance with the following provisions of this regulation.

(2) For paragraph (1) there shall be substituted the following paragraph—

“(1) Where a Primary Care Trust is considering whether to remove an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from its ophthalmic list under section 49F(4) of the Act (an unsuitability case), it shall—

(a) consider any information relating to him which it has received in accordance with any provision of Schedule 1 or 1A;

(b) check with the Secretary of State as to any record held by him about past or current investigations or proceedings involving or relating to the ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician; and

(c) in reaching its decision, take into consideration the matters set out in paragraph (2).”.

(3) In paragraph (2)—

(a) for “criteria” there shall be substituted “matters”;

(b) for sub-paragraphs (b) to (f), there shall be substituted—

“(b) the length of time since any offence, incident, conviction or investigation;

(c) whether there are other offences, incidents or investigations to be considered;

(d) any action taken or penalty imposed by any licensing or regulatory body, the police or the courts as a result of any such offence, incident or investigation;

(e) the relevance of any offence, incident or investigation to his provision of general ophthalmic services and the likely risk to patients or to public finances;

(f) whether any offence was a sexual offence to which Part I of the Sexual Offences Act 2003(2) applies or, if it had been committed in England and Wales, would have applied;”;

(c) after sub-paragraph (h) “and” shall be omitted and, at the end of the paragraph, there shall be added—

“and

(j) in the case of a corporate optician, whether a person who, at the time of the originating events, was one of its directors, has been refused admittance to, conditionally included in, removed, contingently removed or suspended from any list or equivalent list and, if so, the facts relating to the matter which led to such action and the reasons given by the Primary Care Trust or equivalent body for such action.”.

(4) For paragraph (3) there shall be substituted—

“(3) Where a Primary Care Trust is considering whether to remove an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from its ophthalmic list under section 49F(3) of the Act (a fraud case), it shall—

(a) consider any information relating to him which it has received in accordance with any provision of Schedule 1 or 1A;

(b) check with the Secretary of State as to any record held by him about past or current investigations or proceedings involving or relating to the ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician; and

(c) in reaching its decision, take into consideration the matters set out in paragraph (4).”.

(5) In paragraph (4)—

(a) for “criteria”, there shall be substituted “matters”;

(b) in sub-paragraph (d), for “the incident”, there shall be substituted “any such offence, investigation or incident”; and

(c) at the end of sub-paragraph (g) “and” shall be deleted and, at the end of the paragraph, there shall be added—

“and

(j) in the case of a corporate optician, whether a person who, at the time of the originating events, was one of its directors, has been refused admittance to, conditionally included in, removed, contingently removed or suspended from any list or equivalent list and, if so, the facts relating to the matter which led to such action and the reasons given by the Primary Care Trust or equivalent body for such action.”.

(6) For paragraph (5) there shall be substituted—

“(5) Where a Primary Care Trust is considering whether to remove an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from its ophthalmic list under section 49F(2) of the Act (“an efficiency case”), it shall—

(a) consider any information relating to him which it has received in accordance with any provision of Schedule 1 or 1A;

(b) check with the Secretary of State as to any record held by him about past or current investigations or proceedings involving or relating to the ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician; and

(c) in reaching its decision, take into consideration the matters set out in paragraph (6).”.

(7) In paragraph (6)—

(a) for “criteria” there shall be substituted “matters”;

(b) at the end of sub-paragraph (f) there shall be added “or the Supplementary List Regulations”; and

(c) at the end of sub-paragraph (h) “and” shall be deleted and, at the end of the paragraph, there shall be added—

“and

(j) in the case of a corporate optician, whether a person who, at the time of the originating events, was one of its directors, has been refused admittance to, conditionally included in, removed, contingently removed or suspended from any list or equivalent list and, if so, the facts relating to the matter which led to such action and the reasons given by the Primary Care Trust or equivalent body for such action.”.

(1)

Regulation 9B was inserted, in relation to England, by S.I. 2001/3739 and amended by S.I. 2002/601 and 2469.

(2)

2003 c. 42.