The Health and Personal Social Services (Fund-holding Practices) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations.)

These Regulations further amend the Health and Personal Social Services (Fund-holding Practices) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1993 (“the principal Regulations”), which regulate the recognition and operation of fund-holding practices.

Regulation 4 amends regulation 4 of the principal Regulations (grant of recognition as a fund-holding practice) to provide for a new kind of fund-holding practice: one which is participating in a GP commissioning group. The allotted sum for such a practice will be restricted to prescribing only, and will not cover the purchase of goods and services (regulation 10). Regulations 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 make other amendments to the principal Regulations which are consequential on this change. Regulation 6 amends regulation 8 of the principal Regulations (withdrawal or death of a member of a fund-holding practice) to provide that GP commissioning groups are not subject to the requirement for the transfer of savings to the Health and Social Services Board where a member of a fundholding practice withdraws in certain circumstances.

The Regulations also make further amendments to the principal Regulations:

• Regulation 4 amends regulation 4 of the principal Regulations (grant of recognition as a fund-holding practice) so that recognition of standard and community fund-holding practices will next take effect on 1 April 2003.

• Regulation 13 amends regulation 19A of the principal Regulations (payment of management expenses) to provide that the management allowance may be used to pay redundancy costs for staff employed in connection with the management of the allotted sum.

• Regulation 14 amends regulation 21 of the principal Regulations (savings from the allotted sum) to allow savings also to be spent on redundancy costs under regulation 19A, to provide that members of a GP commissioning group are able to spend savings on the training of employees of members of the practice (which members of a standard and community fund-holding practice may do by virtue of regulation 19 of the principal Regulations), and to specify an additional condition for Health and Social Services Board consent for the use of savings: the Health and Social Services Board must be satisfied that, if the expenditure were incurred, the members of the fund-holding practice would retain sufficient savings to meet any predictable overspend in the current and (in some cases) previous financial years.

• A new regulation 21A is inserted into the principal Regulations, which requires that redundancy payments must be met firstly from the management allowance, then from savings and finally from the remainder of the allotted sum.

The Statement referred to in regulation 19(2) of the principal Regulations is available from the Department of Health and Social Services, Dundonald House, Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast BT4 3SF.