These Regulations amend the National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) (Scotland) Regulations 1986 which provide for the arrangements under which ophthalmic medical practitioners and ophthalmic opticians ( “contractors”) provide general ophthalmic services.
As a consequence of the Health and Medicines Act 1988, from 1st April 1989 only certain categories of persons will be entitled to sight tests under general ophthalmic services. Those persons are specified by regulation 4 as children (including those under 19 in full-time education), persons entitled to income support or to family credit or to full remission of certain National Health Service charges, persons needing complex optical appliances, the registered blind or partially sighted, diabetics, those suffering from glaucoma and certain relatives of those suffering from glaucoma.
Regulation 4 also provides for those shown as a result of the sight test to need a complex optical appliance or who establish entitlement to full remission of NHS charges after the test to be treated as having had their sight tested under general ophthalmic services, so that any fee paid may be recovered from the Health Board. The appropriate adjustment is made to the contractor’s remuneration (regulation 3).