# The General Ophthalmic Services Contracts Regulations 2008, Paragraph 8: Conditions for employment: ophthalmic practitioners performing ophthalmic services


(1) A contractor shall not employ an ophthalmic practitioner to perform ophthalmic services under the contract unless—
(a) that practitioner has provided it with his professional registration number and the name and address of the Primary Care Trust on whose ophthalmic performers list his name appears;
(b) it has checked that he meets the requirements in paragraphs 6 and 7 and has obtained and is satisfied with his clinical references; and
(c) it has taken reasonable steps to satisfy itself that he has the clinical experience and training necessary to enable him to properly perform primary ophthalmic services.
(2) Where the employment of a person falling within sub-paragraph (1) is urgently needed and it is not possible for the contractor to obtain and satisfy itself as to the references in accordance with sub-paragraph (1)(b) before employing him, the ophthalmic practitioner may be employed on a temporary basis for a single period of up to 14 days whilst those references are obtained and considered, and for an additional period of a further 14 days if the contractor has good reason to believe the person supplying the references is ill, on holiday or otherwise temporarily unavailable.
(3) Where the contractor employs the same person on more than one occasion within a period of 6 months, it may rely on the references provided on the first occasion, provided that those references are not more than 12 months old.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2008/1185/schedule/1/paragraph/8 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/general-ophthalmic-services-contracts-regulations-2008/schedule-1/paragraph-8
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.