Explanatory note

These Regulations amend the National Health Service (Charges to Overseas Visitors) Regulations 2015 (S.I. 2015/238) (“the Principal Regulations”) which provide for the making and recovery of charges for relevant services provided under the National Health Service Act 2006 (c.41) to certain persons not ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom (“overseas visitors”).

Regulation 2(2) amends regulation 7 of the Principal Regulations. The national tariff (the prices and payment rules for commissioners and providers to use for NHS services) for 2021/2022 only publishes a national price for unbundled diagnostic services, and for all other services without national prices, subject to the rules, publishes unit prices instead. The amendments to that regulation provide that for the purpose of calculating charges imposed on overseas visitors (unless an exemption applies), the national price will be used for services that have a national price; for those services that do not the unit price will be used unless the service has neither a national price nor a unit price in which cases the price will be determined according to the rules.

Regulation 2(3) amends regulation 24 of the Principal Regulations, to provide for an exemption from charging overseas visitors for use of certain NHS services, for those individuals who are participating in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 (except individuals from Games workforce). The exemption applies to treatment, the need for which arises during the individual’s visit to the United Kingdom, and is limited to the period beginning with 14th July 2022 and ending with 17th August 2022.

Regulation 2(4) replaces the previous descriptive terminology for coronavirus in Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations to align with terminology used for the disease in other legislation.

A full impact assessment has not been produced for this instrument as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.