The National Health Service Commissioning Board and Clinical Commissioning Groups (Responsibilities and Standing Rules) Regulations 2012

Duty to ensure persons are offered a choice of health service provider

39.—(1) A relevant body must make arrangements to ensure that a person—

(a) who requires an elective referral; and

(b) for whom that body has responsibility,

is given the choices specified in paragraph (2).

(2) Subject to regulations 40 and 41, the choices specified for the purposes of this paragraph are the choice, in respect of a first outpatient appointment with a consultant or a member of a consultant’s team, of—

(a) any clinically appropriate health service provider with whom any relevant body has a commissioning contract for the service required as a result of the referral; and

(b) any clinically appropriate team led by a named consultant who is employed or engaged by that health service provider.

(3) A relevant body must make arrangements to ensure that a person—

(a) who requires an elective referral for mental health services; and

(b) for whom that body has responsibility in relation to the services in respect of which the referral is made,

is given the choice specified in paragraph (4).

(4) Subject to regulation 41, the choice specified for the purposes of this paragraph is the choice, in respect of a first outpatient appointment with a health care professional or a member of a health care professional’s team, of any clinically appropriate team led by a named health care professional who is employed or engaged by the health service provider to whom the patient has been referred.

(5) The arrangements referred to in paragraphs (1) and (3) must include such arrangements as are necessary to ensure that a person may make the choices specified in those paragraphs where that person—

(a) has not been offered that choice by the person making the initial referral; and

(b) notifies the relevant body who has responsibility for that person that that choice was not offered.

(6) For the purposes of this Part, a health service provider, or a team led by a consultant or a health care professional, is clinically appropriate if, in the opinion of the person making the referral, they offer services that are clinically appropriate for that person in respect of the condition for which that person is referred.