The National Health Service (General Medical Services Supplementary Lists) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2004

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (General Medical Services Supplementary Lists) (Scotland) Regulations 2003 (“the principal Regulations”) which make provision for the preparation and keeping, by Health Boards and NHS trusts, of lists of medical practitioners approved to assist in the provision of general medical services under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 (“the Act”).

These Regulations make amendments to the principal Regulations consequential upon the National Health Service (Tribunal) (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (“the 2004 Regulations”), amendments made to the Act by the Health Act 1999 (“the 1999 Act”), relating to the NHS Tribunal and the disqualification of practitioners providing services under Part II of the Act, and the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002, which applies the NHS Tribunal and the provisions on the disqualification of practitioners to medical practitioners approved to assist in the provision of general medical services. The effect is that the NHS Tribunal may also now inquire into representations regarding, and disqualify, a medical practitioner on a supplementary list.

Consequential upon the application of the NHS Tribunal and the provisions on the disqualification of practitioners to medical practitioners on a supplementary list, these Regulations in particular make new provision for–

(a) restrictions on medical practitioners, who are the subject of representations to, or review by, the Tribunal, from withdrawing from a supplementary list (regulation 2(3));

(b) payments by the Common Services Agency to medical practitioners on supplementary lists who have been suspended by a direction of the NHS Tribunal (regulation 2(5)).

These Regulations also–

(a) clarify that a Health Board or primary care NHS trust shall not include in the supplementary list practitioners who may not be added to that list, by virtue of the provisions of regulation 26 (practitioner subject to inquiry in a fraud case) of the 2004 Regulations, until proceedings in that case are finally concluded;

(b) amend references to provisions of the Act to be references to provisions of the Act as amended by the 1999 Act; and

(c) amend references to medical lists to include references to supplementary lists, which consequent to the 2002 Act, a medical practitioner may be disqualified from inclusion on.