These Regulations further amend the National Health Service (General Medical Services) Regulations 1992 (“the principal Regulations”), which regulate the selection of general practitioners (“GPs”) to fill practice vacancies.

Following the abolition of the Medical Practices Committee by section 14 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001, these Regulations provide for a new system for the identification of vacancies by Health Authorities and the imposition of conditions of practice on GPs filling those vacancies and makes consequential amendments to the principal Regulations.

Section 14 of the Health and Social Care Act 2001 also transferred the function of issuing a certificate to GPs that a transaction does not involve the sale of goodwill to the Secretary of State and regulations 24 and 27 make consequential amendments to the principal Regulations. Regulation 29 makes transitional provisions for outstanding applications to the Medical Practices Committee for certificates or opinions as to whether certain transactions amount to the sale or purchase of goodwill of a medical practice when these Regulations come into force to be treated as applications to the Secretary of State .

Regulation 24 amends regulation 18L to provide new transitional provisions to reflect the changes made to Part III of the principal Regulations by these Regulations.