(1)The Secretary of State may allow persons to make use on such terms (including terms as to the payment of charges) as he thinks fit, of any accommodation or services provided under this Act and may provide the accommodation or services in question to an extent greater than that necessary apart from this section if he thinks it expedient to do so in order to allow persons to make use of them.
(2)This section is subject to sections 51, 52 and 54.
(1)In this section and section 52 " the section 50 power " means the Secretary of State's power under section 50 to afford persons (subject to section 54) admission or access to accommodation or services as resident or non-resident private patients at health service hospitals.
(2)The Secretary of State shall not in the exercise of his section 50 power afford a person admission or access to accommodation or services at such a hospital as a private patient unless satisfied that the accommodation or services are required for the purposes of investigation, diagnosis or treatment which—
(a)is of a specialised nature or involves the use of specialised equipment or skills ; and
(b)is not privately available in Great Britain or, if it is so available, either—
(i)is not privately available there at a place which is reasonably accessible to the patient; or
(ii)is such that it is in the interests of the Scottish health service or of the health service in England and Wales or of both for it to be carried out on that occasion at that hospital.
In this subsection " privately available " means available at a satisfactory standard otherwise than at a health service hospital.
(3)The Secretary of State shall not exercise his section 50 power in such a way as to afford persons admission or access to accommodation or services at health service hospitals as private patients otherwise than in accordance with the following arrangements.
Those arrangements are such as in his opinion are best suited for securing that all persons admitted or afforded access to accommodation or services at health service hospitals as resident or non-resident patients for the purposes of investigation, diagnosis or treatment of a specialised nature, or involving the use of specialised equipment or skills, are, so far as practicable, admitted or afforded such access on the basis of medical priority alone, whether they come as private patients or not.
(4)The Secretary of State shall not exercise his section 50 power in such a way as to allow any particular accommodation or facilities at a health service hospital to be reserved or set aside for regular or repeated use in connection with the treatment of persons as private patients.
This subsection is without prejudice to his power to allow such use in connection with the treatment of any particular person afforded admission or access to that accommodation or those facilities.
(1)There shall be made in respect of any exercise of the section 50 power such charges as the Secretary of State may in accordance with subsections (2) and (3) determine. '
(2)Without prejudice to the generality of the Secretary of State's section 50 power to make and recover charges for any use which he may under that section allow to be made of any accommodation or services provided under this Act, the Secretary of State may in pursuance of subsection (1) determine different rates or scales of charges—
(a)for different accommodation or services at different health service hospitals or different classes of such hospitals;
(b)for different forms or classes of treatment;
(c)in relation to patients who are, and patients who are not, ordinarily resident in Great Britain ;
(d)generally for different accommodation and for different services and in relation to different circumstances.
(3)The charges determined in pursuance of subsection (1)—
(a)shall be such as will ensure, so far as is practicable, that no increase in the expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under this Act results from any exercise of the section 50 power ;
(b)shall include such amounts as appear to the Secretary of State proper and reasonable in respect of costs appearing to him to be properly attributable to capital account; and
(c)in the case of charges for services provided to a private patient at a health service hospital by a whole-time consultant, shall be not less than would be charged by a part-time consultant for providing similar services in similar circumstances to a private patient of his.
(4)Where a Health Board receives any sum charged under section 50 for services provided to a private patient by a whole-time consultant—
(a)the Board shall retain that sum and use it for the purposes of research and development in medicine or dentistry, but
(b)if the services in question were provided by a consultant employed by a medical or dental school or university, the Board shall, if so directed by the Secretary of State, pay the sum to that school or university to use for those purposes.
(5)Nothing in this section or in section 51 prevents the Secretary of State from allowing any medical or dental practitioner employed by a Health Board to make use of any accommodation or services provided by virtue of this Act to the extent to which the practitioner would be entitled to make such use under the terms of that employment if those terms were as they were or would have been at the passing of the [1976 c. 83.] Health Services Act 1976.
(6)In this section—
" whole-time consultant" and " part-time consultant" mean respectively a consultant employed whole-time or part-time by a Health Board, medical or dental school or university.
(1)The Secretary of State may sell or give away, or otherwise dispose of, goods the production or manufacture of which by him is involved in the provision of services under this Act.
(2)He may, in the case of goods referred to in subsection (1) which are prescribed for the purposes of this section, produce or manufacture them to an extent greater than that necessitated by the provision of such services in order that they may be supplied to persons other than those to whom they are supplied by way of the provision of such services whether or not the first-mentioned persons are engaged in the provision of other services provided under this Act.
(3)This section is subject to section 54.
The Secretary of State shall exercise the powers conferred on him by the provisions of section 44 (supplies of blood and other substances) and sections 50 and 53 only if and to the extent that he is satisfied that anything which he proposes to do or allow under those powers—
(a)will not to a significant extent interfere with the performance by him of any duty imposed on him by this Act to provide accommodation or services of any kind; and
(b)will not to a significant extent operate to the disadvantage of persons seeking or afforded admission or access to accommodation or services at health service hospitals (whether as resident or non-resident patients) otherwise than as private patients.