Nurses Agencies Act 1957

2 Licensing of agencies

(1) No person shall carry on an agency for the supply of nurses on any premises in the area of any licensing authority unless he is the holder of a licence from that authority authorising him so to do on those premises.

In this Act, the expression "licensing authority " means, in relation to the City of London, the Common Council, in relation ' to the remainder of the administrative county of London, the London County Council, and in relation to any other county or any county borough, the council of that county or borough.

(2) Subject to the provisions of this section, if any person who desires to carry on an agency for the supply of nurses in the area of any licensing authority makes an application in that behalf to that authority in the prescribed form, in the prescribed manner, at the prescribed time and giving the prescribed information, and pays to that authority such fee as may be prescribed, the authority shall grant him a licence accordingly, subject, however, to such conditions as they may think fit for securing the proper conduct of the agency, including conditions as to the fees to be charged by the person carrying on the agency, whether to the nurses or other persons supplied, or to the persons to whom they are supplied.

(3) Any such application may be refused, and any such licence which has been granted may be revoked, on any of the following grounds, that is to say—

(a) that the applicant or, as the case may be, the holder of the licence is an individual under the age of twenty-one years or is unsuitable to hold such a licence;

(b) that the premises are unsuitable;

(c) that the agency has been or is being improperly conducted; or

(d) that offences against this Act or Part II of the Nurses Act, 1943, have been committed in connection with the carrying on of the agency.

(4) An applicant for or holder of any such licence who is aggrieved by the refusal of the licensing authority to grant such a licence, or by the revocation by the licensing authority of the licence, or by any conditions attached to the licence, may, within twenty-one days from the receipt by him of notice of the refusal or of the revocation or of the grant of the licence subject to the conditions, appeal to a court of summary jurisdiction, who may make such order as they think just; and the authority shall, if required by him in writing so to do, send or deliver to him within seven days of the receipt of the requirement particulars in writing of the ground for the refusal, the revocation or the attachment of the conditions, as the case may be.

(5) An application under this Act for the grant of a licence in respect of an agency in respect of which a licence is in force at the time of the application shall not be refused and a licence under this Act shall not be revoked by a licensing authority unless the holder has been given an opportunity of being heard by the licensing authority or a committee thereof.

(6) Every licensing authority shall in each year cause an annual meeting (either of the authority themselves or, if under any powers enabling them in that behalf, they have delegated their powers under this section to a committee, of that committee) to be held for the purpose of considering applications for licences under this act and every licence granted under this Act shall (unless revoked) be valid until the thirty-first day of December in the year next following that in which the licence is granted and no longer.

Provided that nothing in this subsection shall be construed as preventing the consideration of applications otherwise than at any such annual meeting.

(7) On the death of the holder of a licence under this Act, the licence shall enure for the benefit of his personal representatives, and references in this Act to the holder of such a licence shall be construed accordingly.