The Medicines (Monitoring of Advertising) Regulations 1994

Complaints about certain advertisements

5.—(1) This regulation applies to any complaint made to the Health Ministers, other than a complaint which it is the duty of a complaints authority to consider under regulations 9(1) or 10(1), that an advertisement, whether or not it has yet been published, may be in breach of any provision of regulation 9 of the Advertising Regulations (prohibition of certain material in advertisements to the public) or any regulation in Part IV of the Advertising Regulations (advertising to health professionals).

(2) Subject to paragraph (4), in relation to a complaint to which this regulation applies, where the Health Ministers and the complainant agree within a reasonable time that the provisions of this paragraph should apply, the Health Ministers shall select a body which appears to them to be a self–regulatory body which deals with complaints about advertisements of that type, shall refer the complaint to that body, and that body may consider the complaint.

(3) Subject to paragraph (4), the Health Ministers shall consider any complaint to which this regulation applies–

(a) in the absence of any agreement within a reasonable time in accordance with paragraph (2), or

(b) if, where there is such agreement, the body selected by the Health Ministers in accordance with paragraph (2) has not within a reasonable time dealt with the complaint adequately.

(4) Neither the Health Ministers nor the body selected by the Health Ministers in accordance with paragraph (2) shall proceed with the consideration of any complaint which appears to them or to it to be frivolous or vexatious.