The National Health Service (Pharmaceutical Services) Regulations 2012

Dispensing doctor lists

46.—(1) Each Primary Care Trust must prepare and publish a list (a “dispensing doctor list”) of the names any “dispensing doctors” in the area of the Primary Care Trust, that is to say—

(a) providers of primary medical services who provide pharmaceutical services from medical practice premises in the area of the Primary Care Trust; and

(b) general practitioners who are not providers of primary medical services but who provide pharmaceutical services from medical practice premises in the area of the Primary Care Trust (not including general practitioners who are listed as part of the listing of a provider by virtue of paragraph (6)(b)).

(2) Each dispensing doctor list must be available for public inspection and must include—

(a) the address of any premises in the area of the Primary Care Trust for which a listed dispensing doctor has premises approval (“the listed dispensing premises”) and any other medical practice premises of the dispensing doctor in that area; and

(b) any area in relation to which the dispensing doctor has outline consent.

(3) A Primary Care Trust must remove a dispensing doctor from its dispensing doctor list if—

(a) in the case of a listed provider of primary medical services, that person or partnership ceases to be a provider of primary medical services or ceases to be a provider of those services to the Primary Care Trust;

(b) in the case of a listed general practitioner, that person is no longer on a medical performers list or no longer performs primary medical services within the area of the Primary Care Trust; or

(c) all the arrangements that the dispensing doctor has with the Primary Care Trust to perform or provide pharmaceutical services have been discontinued, or the permissions that the dispensing doctor requires in order to have such arrangements have lapsed, in accordance with this Part.

(4) If—

(a) a general practitioner who is the only partner or shareholder in a provider of primary medical services who is a dispensing doctor so elects; or

(b) all the general practitioners who are the members of a provider of primary medical services who are dispensing doctors so elect,

they may request that their Primary Care Trust lists that provider instead of them as the dispensing doctor (or doctors) on the Primary Care Trust’s dispensing doctors list.

(5) In the circumstances described in paragraph (4)—

(a) the Primary Care Trust must agree to that request;

(b) the arrangements that the Primary Care Trust had with the individual dispensing doctor or doctors become arrangements with the provider of primary medical services; and

(c) the premises approvals and related outline consents of those general practitioners become the premises approvals and outline consents of the provider of primary medical services.

(6) Where a provider of primary medical services is listed in a dispensing doctors list—

(a) the provider must notify the Primary Care Trust—

(i) of any general practitioner who performs primary medical services on behalf of the provider who the provider anticipates will provide pharmaceutical services on behalf of the provider, and

(ii) if a general practitioner who has been so notified, when the provider no longer anticipates that the general practitioner will provide pharmaceutical services on behalf of the provider; and

(b) as part of the listing of the provider in its dispensing doctors list, the Primary Care Trust must include the names of any general practitioner notified under sub-paragraph (a)(i), unless the Primary Care Trust has received a further notification in respect of that general practitioner under sub-paragraph (a)(ii).