National Health Service (Free Prescriptions and Charges for Drugs and Appliances) (Wales) Regulations 2007

Supply of drugs and appliances by doctors

4.—(1) A doctor who provides pharmaceutical services to a patient must not make or recover a charge for any drugs or appliances supplied as part of those services in the following circumstances—

(a) where the patient presents a Welsh prescription form; or

(b) where the patient presents both an equivalent prescription form and a valid entitlement card.

(2) Save where the circumstances in paragraph (1)(a) and (b) above are satisfied, a doctor who provides pharmaceutical services to a patient, must, subject to paragraph (3), make and recover from that patient,—

(a) in respect of an item of elastic hosiery the charge that is specified in regulation 4(1)(a) of the Charges Regulations 2000,

(b) in respect of the supply of each other appliance and each quantity of a drug, the charge that is specified in regulation 4(1)(b) of the Charges Regulations 2000.

(3) No charge may be made and recovered under paragraph (2) where—

(a) there is exemption under regulation 8 and a declaration of entitlement to exemption on the equivalent prescription form is duly completed by or on behalf of the patient; or

(b) there is entitlement to remission of the charge under regulation 3 of the Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations and a declaration of entitlement to remission is duly completed by or on behalf of the patient in accordance with regulation 7 of those Regulations.

(4) Where a charge is paid under paragraph (2), the person making the payment must on doing so sign a declaration in writing on the equivalent prescription form that the relevant charge has been paid.

(5) For the purposes of paragraph (2) where a drug ordered on a single equivalent prescription form is supplied by instalments, the charge specified in regulation 4(4) of the Charges Regulations 2000 payable for that drug must be paid upon the supply of the first instalment.

(6) A doctor is under no obligation to provide pharmaceutical services for which a charge is required to be made and recovered by paragraph (2) unless he or she is first paid the amount of that charge by the patient.

(7) A doctor who makes and recovers a charge under paragraph (2) must, if so required by the patient, give the patient a receipt for the amount received on the form provided for the purpose which form must contain forms of declaration in support of an application for repayment and information as to whom an application for repayment should be made.

(8) Nothing in this regulation shall authorise the payment of a charge where the drug or appliance supplied either—

(a) is needed for immediate treatment and no order for the drug or appliance is made on an equivalent prescription form; or

(b) is administered or applied to the patient by the doctor personally.