The National Health Service (Charges for Drugs and Appliances) and (Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges) Amendment Regulations 2005

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Charges for Drugs and Appliances) Regulations 2000 (“ the Charges Regulations”) and the National Health Service (Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges) Regulations 2003 (“the Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations”).

Regulation 2 increases prescription and other charges payable under the Charges Regulations.

Regulations 4, 5 and 6 amend the Charges Regulations to reflect the use of electronic prescribing in the NHS. The principal change made by these Regulations is that patients will make a different form of declaration of entitlement to exemption from, or remission of, charges under the Charges Regulations in cases where electronic prescriptions are used to cases in which non-electronic prescriptions are used.

Regulation 7 amends the Charges Regulations to reflect the position that a number of providers, apart from doctors, will be providing out of hours services and sets out the circumstances in which a provider of out of hours services will be able to make and recover charges for the supply of drugs and appliances to a patient and makes consequential provision.

The principal change made by regulation 11 to the Charges Regulations is to remove the requirement that persons aged under 16 and 60 or over, who are exempt from paying charges under the Charges Regulations by virtue of their age, and who have their date of birth set out on electronic prescription forms or non-electronic prescriptions forms, must declare that they are exempt by reason of their age when supplied with drugs or appliances by chemists under regulation 3 of the Charges Regulations or doctors under regulation 4 of the Charges Regulations.

Regulation 12 amends the Charges Regulations so that exemption certificates issued by the Secretary of State will be valid from the date one month prior to the date on which the Secretary of State received the application for an exemption certificate.

Other minor and consequential changes are made to the Charges Regulations by regulations 3,8, 9, 10, 13 and 14.

Regulations 16 and 19 amend the Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations to increase the amounts used as the basis for calculating entitlement to the payment of travel expenses and the remission of charges under those Regulations.

Regulation 17 amends the Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations to extend to 5 years the time period for which a notice of entitlement to remission of charges and the payment of travel expenses is valid where issued to a single person aged 65 or over, or to one of a couple where one partner is aged 60 or over and the other partner is aged 65 or over, where that person does not have certain types of income or a dependant child or young person in his household. Regulation 17 also provides that a person issued with a 5 year notice of entitlement must notify the Secretary of State of any changes in the composition of his family or household during the life of the notice and enables the Secretary of State to withdraw or vary the notice if the person no longer fulfils the necessary criteria to be issued with that notice. Regulation 15 makes consequential changes to the interpretation section of the Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations arising from the changes made by regulation 17..

Regulation 18 amends the Travel Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations to enable the Dental Practice Board to receive claims for repayment of charges relating to the supply of dental appliances or the provision of dental treatment on behalf of the Secretary of State and to decide whether such a claim for repayment should be allowed outside the usual time limit of 3 months.