The National Health Service (Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges) Amendment Regulations 1991

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations further amend the National Health Service (Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges) Regulations 1988 (“the principal Regulations”) which provide for the remission and repayment of certain charges which would otherwise be payable under the National Health Service Act 1977, and for payments to be made in respect of travelling expenses incurred by a person attending a hospital, or attending a centre, for treatment disablement services, under the National Health Service (“the NHS”). The amendments are made principally in consequence of the introduction of NHS contracts and the provision of NHS services by NHS trusts from 1st April 1991 under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.

Amendments are made to regulations 3, 5 and 8 of, and a new regulation 5A is inserted in, the principal Regulations to provide for payments by an NHS trust in respect of travelling expenses incurred by a patient in attending for NHS treatment at a hospital managed by the trust (regulation 2(3)(a), (4), (5) and (6)(b)). A new regulation 8A is inserted in the principal Regulations to provide for the reimbursenient, by a patient’s District Health Authority to an NHS trust or to another District Health Authority, of payments made in respect of the travelling expenses incurred by the patient in attending hospital to receive NHS services from that trust, or from that other District Health Authority, under the terms of an NHS contract with another health service body (regulation 2(7)).

These Regulations also substitute a new sub-paragraph (b) in regulation 3(3) of the principal Regulations to provide, following the dissolution of the Disablement Services Authority, for payments to be made in respect of travelling expenses incurred by persons in attending for the provision of “disablement services”, as defined in a new paragraph (5) (regulation 2(3)(b) and (c)). Regulation 8(2) of the principal Regulations is amended to enable the Secretary of State to extend, in a case where there is good cause for so doing, the period within which a claim for repayment of a relevant charge or relevant travelling expenses must be made (regulation 2(6)(a)). An amendment is also made in Table B of Schedule I to the principal Regulations (which modifies the Income Support (General) Regulations 1987 for the purpose of calculating a person’s requirements under the principal Regulations) to remove the exclusion of certain household repairs and improvements from the assessment of a person’s housing costs (regulation 2(8)).

Other amendments of a minor nature are made, and definitions are inserted, in the principal Regulations in consequence of the other changes mentioned in this Note (regulation 2(2)).