The National Health Service (Fund-holding Amendment Regulations 1998 Practices)

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Fund-holding Practices) Regulations 1996 (“the principal Regulations”), which provide for the recognition and operation of fund-holding practices.

The Regulations incorporate amendments in connection with the coming into force on 1st April 1998 of certain provisions of the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 (“the 1997 Act”). In particular, regulation 5 amends regulation 19 of the principal Regulations (payment for drugs, medicines and listed appliances) so that it does not apply to standard fund-holding practices or community fund-holding practices who are party to a pilot scheme under the 1997 Act which provides for the Health Authority to recoup the costs of drugs, medicines and listed appliances prescribed by members of the practice, or for services other than personal medical services. Regulation 6 amends regulation 22 of the principal Regulations (payments to staff) so that it does not apply to standard or community fund-holding practices who are party to a pilot scheme which provides for payments to staff. Regulations 7 and 8 amend Schedules 1 and 2 to the principal Regulations (conditions for obtaining and continuing recognition) to include requirements that members of fund-holding practices providing or performing personal medical services under a pilot scheme under the 1997 Act must not be employed by another person, must each maintain a list of patients and in the case of a standard or community fund-holding practice, must not provide under' the pilot scheme any of the goods or services that may be purchased from the list approved by the Secretary of State (in accordance with regulation 20).

The Regulations also make further amendments to the principal Regulations:

• Regulation 9 amends regulation 5 of the principal Regulations (grant of recognition as a fund-holding practice) so that recognition of standard and community fund-holding practices is to take effect every four years, rather than (as previously) biennially. Regulation 14 makes a consequential amendment to regulation 7 of the National Health Service (Fund-holding Practices) Amendment (No. 2) Regulations 1997 relating to applications outstanding on 31 July 1997.

• Regulation 10 amends regulation 23 of the principal Regulations (payment of management expenses to provide that the management allowance may be used to pay redundancy costs for staff employed in connection with the management of the allotted sum. Regulation 25 (savings from the allotted sum) is also amended to allow savings to be spent on redundancy costs under regulation 23. A new regulation 25A is inserted into the principal Regulations, which requires that redundancy payments must be met firstly from the management allowance, then from savings and finally from the remainder of the allotted sum.

• Regulation 11 amends regulation 25 of the principal Regulations (savings from the allotted sum) to specify additional conditions for Health Authority consent for the use of savings. It also provides a limit of £90,000 upon the amount of savings that may be spent in a financial year where Health Authority consent is required.

• Regulation 12 inserts a new regulation 10A into the principal Regulations. This regulation enables an application to be made on or before 30 June 1998 by a standard or community fund-holding practice for an accelerated change of status to a GP commissioning group.