These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Free Prescriptions and Charges for Drugs and Appliances) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (“the principal Regulations”). The principal Regulations provide that where a person provides pharmaceutical services to a patient who presents an English prescription form, that person must make and recover from the patient the charges specified in the National Health Service (Charges for Drugs and Appliances) Regulations 2000 (S.I. 2000/620), unless certain exemptions apply.

Regulations 2(a) and (b) update the principal Regulations so that the charge for a prescription presented on an English prescription form will reflect the current English rates from the date these Regulations come into force.