The National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services Supplementary List) and (General Ophthalmic Services Amendment and Consequential Amendment) Regulations 2005

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

Part I of these Regulations provides for a supplementary list for those assisting in the provision of general ophthalmic services to be kept by Primary Care Trusts in accordance with the provisions of section 43D of the National Health Service Act 1977.

Regulation 2 provides some definitions for the Regulations.

Regulation 3 provides that each Primary Care Trust must prepare and publish a supplementary list. It also provides that no ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician may assist in performing general ophthalmic services unless his name is included in such a list or in an ophthalmic list.

Regulation 4 sets out how to apply to be included in the list and requires certain information to be given. It relaxes those requirements for an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician who is included in the ophthalmic list of that Trust.

Regulation 5 provides for an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician to be readmitted to the supplementary list on a successful appeal against conviction.

Regulation 6 sets out the grounds on which the Primary Care Trust may or must refuse to admit an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician to the supplementary list, and the matters to which it must have regard.

Regulation 7 sets out the circumstances in which a Primary Care Trust may defer consideration of an application to include an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician in the supplementary list and the procedure to be followed in that respect.

Regulation 8 allows Primary Care Trusts to enter an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician’s name in the supplementary list subject to condition. It also allows an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician’s name to be included in that list, until any appeal has been decided, provided he agrees to be bound by the condition until the appeal is determined.

Regulation 9 provides for a requirement that an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician notify the Primary Care Trust in writing, within 7 days, if he, or a company of which he is a director, incurs any criminal convictions or other specified matters occur.

Regulation 10 provides for the mandatory removal from its supplementary list by a Primary Care Trust of any ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician convicted of murder or of a criminal offence and sentenced to over 6 months and for their discretionary removal on specified grounds.

Regulation 11 sets out the criteria for decisions on discretionary removals from the supplementary list.

Regulation 12 provides for a Primary Care Trust to impose conditions on an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician whose name is included in the supplementary list and for him to be removed if he fails to comply with those conditions.

Regulation 13 provides for a Primary Care Trust to suspend an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from the supplementary list, if certain conditions are met, for the procedure to be then followed and provides for payment to suspended ophthalmic medical practitioners or opticians.

Regulation 14 provides for review and the procedure to be followed by Primary Care Trusts where the Primary Care Trust decides to conditionally include, contingently remove, or suspend an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from the supplementary list.

Regulation 15 provides for appeals from specified decisions to be heard by the FHSAA.

Regulation 16 provides for a Primary Care Trust to notify specified persons of specified information relating to decisions to refuse to admit, impose conditions, remove (or contingently remove) or suspend an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician from the supplementary list.

Regulation 17 provides for the circumstances in which an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician may or may not withdraw from the supplementary list and regulation 18 provides for the circumstances in which an ophthalmic medical practitioner or optician may not withdraw from the supplementary list.

Regulation 19 amends the statutory period for review set out in section 49N of the National Health Service Act 1977 in specified circumstances.

Regulation 20 provides for the disclosure of information to specified persons.

Regulation 21 makes transitional provision for ophthalmic medical practitioners or opticians, already assisting in the provision of general ophthalmic services before the coming into force of these Regulations, to continue to do so until not later than 31st July 2005, while their applications for inclusion in a supplementary list are determined. It also makes like provision for those applying for inclusion in a list in the first month after the coming into force of these Regulations and makes provision for those wrongly included in an ophthalmic list to be transferred to a supplementary list.

Part II (regulations 22 to 41) amends the National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) Regulations 1986 to ensure like provision in relation to ophthalmic lists to that provided in these Regulations for supplementary lists.

Part II also makes further provision for opticians which are corporate bodies practising as ophthalmic opticians (“corporate opticians”), extends the categories of persons who may be included in an ophthalmic list (in regulation 39(2) to (5)) and makes provision in relation to mobile services (in regulations 23(2) and (3), 24(3), 25(2) and 39(2), (3) and (5)). It further amends those Regulations (in regulation 39(9)) so as to clarify who may sign a claim for payment and provides when a counter-signature is also required.

Part II also amends those Regulations (in regulation 39(10)) so as to provide for opticians to refer patients to a doctor within the hospital eye service, to so inform the patient’s doctor and give that patient a statement to that effect. Regulation 41 requires corporate opticians already included in an ophthalmic list to provide further information required under these Regulations by 31st July 2005 and makes other transitional provisions.

Part III makes consequential amendments. Regulation 42 amends the Sight Testing (Examination and Prescription) (No. 2) Regulations 1989, so that the duty, in England, to issue a written statement as to whether the patient is being referred to a registered medical practitioner does not arise in a case to which paragraph 10(2) of Schedule 1 to the National Health Service (General Ophthalmic Services) Regulations 1986 (as amended by these Regulations) applies. Regulation 43 amends the National Health Service (Optical Charges and Payments) Regulations 1997 to make provision for the introduction of supplementary lists.