(This note is not part of the Regulations)
These Regulations further amend the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) (Scotland) Regulations 1989 (“the principal Regulations”) to provide for the making and recovery of charges in respect of certain services provided under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 to certain persons not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom (“overseas visitors”).
Regulations 3 and 5 clarify the entitlement specifications for several of the existing categories of overseas visitor who are exempt from charges for services.
Regulation 4 exempts certain United Kingdom retirement pensioners who live in the United Kingdom for six months or more and in another member State for six months or less in the year preceding the provision of services from charges when they are in the United Kingdom.
Regulation 6 enables Scottish Ministers to make a determination in certain circumstances to exempt specified overseas visitors from charges for specified services for exceptional humanitarian reasons and regulation 5 exempts from charges for treatment, the need for which arose during the course of a visit, specified persons who accompany a person to whom an exemption for exceptional humanitarian reasons applies.
Regulation 7 inserts Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in the list in Schedule 1 of treatments exempt from charges.