The National Health Service (General Dental Services) Amendment Regulations 1987

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (General Dental Services) Regulations 1973 (“the principal Regulations”) by the insertion of a new Part VIA into those Regulations. They make provision for payments to be made to dentists whose registration under the Dentists Act 1984 is suspended by an interim suspension order or by a direction or an order of the Health Committee. Under section 35(3) of the National Health Service Act 1977 a dentist with whom arrangements have been made for the provision of general dental services whose registration is so suspended may not provide the services in person during the suspension, though the suspension does not terminate the arrangements.

Provision is made by these Regulations in particular for the following matters–

(a) entitlement to payments (regulation 26B of the principal Regulations), including restrictions on entitlement (regulation 26B(2) and (3));

(b) application for payments (regulation 26C of the principal Regulations);

(c) the amount and the time of payments (regulation 26D of the principal Regulations); payment is at one of two rates according to the circumstances of the suspension, subject to a reduction in cases where the dentist has low earnings (regulation 26D(2)) or has been on the dental list of a Family Practitioner Committee for less than two years (regulation 26D(3));

(d) changes in circumstances (regulation 26E of the principal Regulations);

(e) overpayments (regulation 26F of the principal Regulations).