The National Health Service (Fund-holding Practices) Regulations 1996

Withdrawal or death of a member of a fund-holding practice

9.—(1) Where a member of a fund-holding practice retires or dies, the recognition of the remaining members of the fund-holding practice shall not be affected if the conditions specified in Schedule 2 in relation to the kind of practice in question continue to be fulfilled in relation to the practice.

(2) Where a member of a fund-holding practice withdraws from the fund-holding practice in circumstances other than death or retirement—

(a) the remaining members of the practice shall give notice to the Health Authority stating the date on which the withdrawal is to take or took effect; and

(b) the Health Authority shall forward the notice to the Secretary of State,

and paragraphs (3) to (6) shall apply.

(3) Where the remaining members of the fund-holding practice or one or more members who withdrew from the fund-holding practice wish to continue as a recognised fund-holding practice, they shall apply to the Secretary of State for recognition as a fund-holding practice in accordance with regulation 3; and in those circumstances—

(a) regulations 4 and 5(2) shall not apply in the case of such an application;

(b) where all the medical practitioners making the application have been members of a recognised fund-holding practice for at least one year, paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 shall not apply;

(c) subject to regulation 15, they shall continue to be recognised or, as the case may be, shall be treated as recognised until the application is determined;

(d) if, as a result, there is more than one fund-holding practice treated as though it were recognised by virtue of sub-paragraph (c), the allotted sum payable in respect of the current financial year and, subject to paragraph (5)1 any accumulated savings of the original practice shall be divided between them in proportions calculated by reference to the respective list sizes of the members of the practices; and

(e) where any application under this paragraph is refused, regulation 17 shall apply as if the refusal to grant recognition had been a removal of recognition.

(4) A member of a fund-holding practice who is a partner of another member of the fund-holding practice may not withdraw from the fund-holding practice unless he also ceases to be a partner of that other member.

(5) Where a member of a fund-holding practice (in this paragraph and in paragraph (6) referred to as “the former member”) withdraws from the practice and—

(a) he continues to be included in the medical list of the Health Authority, and

(b) on the date on which the withdrawal takes effect, there are savings in the fund-holding account,

such proportion of those savings as the remaining members of the fund-holding practice and the former member may agree (or where they do not agree, the proportion which his list size bears to the sum of all their list sizes) shall be transferred to the Health Authority.

(6) The Health Authority shall apply that part of the savings transferred to it as mentioned in paragraph (5) in accordance with regulation 25 for such purposes as the former member of the fund-holding practice may require, until such time as he ceases to retain responsibility for at least half the patients who were on his list at the time of his withdrawal from the fund-holding practice.