The NHS Professionals Special Health Authority (Establishment and Constitution) Amendment Order 2004

Citation, commencement, application and interpretation

1.—(1) This Order may be cited as the NHS Professionals Special Health Authority (Establishment and Constitution) Amendment Order 2004 and shall come into force on 1st April 2004.

(2) This Order applies to England only.

(3) In this Order “the Establishment Order” means the NHS Professionals Special Health Authority (Establishment and Constitution) Order 2003(1).

Amendment of the Establishment Order

2.  After article 5 of the Establishment Order (remuneration of members) add—

“Transfer of rights and liabilities

6.   All rights and liabilities of a National Health Service trust or a Primary Care Trust listed in Schedule 1 relating to the activity known as NHS Professionals (being the recruitment and use of temporary staff in the health service), are transferred to the Authority and are therefore enforceable by or, as the case may be, against it.

Transfer of property

7.   All property of the National Health Service trusts listed in Schedule 2 identified as property transferring to the Authority in the document produced by the Department of Health and entitled “Schedule of property transferring from National Health Service trusts to NHS Professionals Special Health Authority on 1st April 2004” and dated 5th March 2004 is transferred to the Authority.

Transfer of officers

8.— (1) This paragraph applies to an officer of—

(a) a National Health Service trust listed in Schedule 2; or

(b) the Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals' National Health Service Trust(2),

who on 31st March 2004 is wholly or mainly engaged in recruitment and use of temporary staff in the health service (being the activity known as NHS Professionals) and who was notified in a letter posted on or before 30th January 2004 that he was to be transferred to the Authority.

(2) Any officer to whom paragraph (1) applies shall, on 1st April 2004, be transferred to the employment of the Authority.

(3) The contract of employment of an officer transferred under paragraph (2)—

(a) is not terminated by the transfer; and

(b) has effect from the time of the transfer as if originally made between the officer and the Authority.

(4) Without prejudice to paragraph (3)—

(a) all the rights, powers, duties and liabilities of the body from which an officer is transferred, under or in connection with its contract of employment with an officer transferred under paragraph (2), shall by virtue of this paragraph be transferred to the Authority; and

(b) anything done before the date of the transfer by or in relation to the body from which that officer is so transferred, in respect of such an officer or his contract of employment, shall be deemed to have been done by or in relation to the Authority.

(5) Paragraphs (2) to (4) do not transfer an officer’s contract of employment, or the rights, powers, duties and liabilities under or in connection with it, if that officer objects to the transfer to the Authority and informs the body from which he would be transferred of that objection by 31st March 2004.

(6) Where an officer objects as mentioned in paragraph (5), his contract of employment with the body from which he would be transferred shall be terminated immediately before the date on which the transfer would occur, but he shall not be treated, for any purpose, as having been dismissed from that body.

(7) This article is without prejudice to any right of an officer to terminate his contract of employment if a substantial change is made to his detriment in his working conditions; but no such right shall arise by reason only that, under this article, the identity of his employer changes unless the officer shows that, in all the circumstances, the change is a significant change and is to his detriment.”.

Insertion of Schedules 1 and 2 in the Establishment Order

3.  There shall be inserted into the Establishment Order at the appropriate place the Schedules set out in the Schedule to this Order.

Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Health

John Hutton

Minister of State,

Department of Health

9th March 2004