These Regulations further amend the Travelling Expenses and Remission of Charges Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2004 (“the principal Regulations”), which provide for remission and payment of certain charges which would otherwise be payable under the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972 and for the payment by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety of travelling expenses incurred in attending a hospital.

In calculating a person’s resources and requirements under the principal Regulations in order to establish whether a person can claim entitlement to remission of Health Service charges and the payment of Health Service travelling expenses, a modified version of the Income Support (General) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 is used, as set out in Schedule 1 to the principal Regulations.

These regulations modify Schedule 1 to the principal Regulations to provide that in respect of a voluntary payment made to a student only £20 of that payment is to be disregarded in calculating that student’s income. The maximum amount of voluntary payments to a student that can be disregarded is £20 per week. The principal Regulations already modify the meaning of “voluntary payment” to exclude certain payments made to students (see entry for regulation 65 in Table A in Schedule 1 to the principal Regulations).