These Regulations further amend the General Medical Services Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997 (“the principal Regulations”), which regulate the terms on which doctors provide general medical services under the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972.

Regulation 2(2) adds definitions of “nurse prescriber” and “professional register” to regulation 2 of the principal Regulations, and regulation 2(3) sets out the specified description of nurse or health visitor referred to in the definition of “nurse prescriber”.

Regulation 2(4) inserts a new paragraph 35A in Schedule 2 to the principal Regulations, to impose an obligation on a general practitioner to notify the relevant Health and Social Services Board when he employs, or ceases to employ, a nurse prescriber whose functions include prescribing in his practice, or when the functions of a nurse prescriber whom he already employs are extended to include, or changed so as not to include, prescribing. This regulation also imposes an obligation on a general practitioner to notify the Health and Social Services Board when he becomes aware that a nurse prescriber in his practice has been removed or suspended from the professional register. The information the doctor shall provide in each event is specified.