Explanatory note

These Regulations further amend the National Health Service (General Medical Services) Regulations 1992 (“the principal Regulations”), which regulate the terms on which general medical services are provided under the National Health Service Act 1977.

These Regulations make provision for the case where a general medical practitioner is suspended from the provision of general medical services by the NHS Tribunal in any part of the United Kingdom, either pending its investigation or pending an appeal from its decision; and for the case where a general medical practitioner who is disqualified by the Tribunal from providing general medical services is also declared to be unfit to provide general medical services in any capacity.

Regulation 3 protects a suspended doctor from removal from the medical list on the ground that he has not provided general medical services for 6 months.

Regulation 4 requires a Family Health Services Authority to make temporary arrangements for the provision of general medical services to a suspended doctor’s patients with one or more other doctors and provides that the patients are to be temporarily transferred to the lists of such other doctors and transferred back again if the suspended doctor is reinstated.

Regulation 5 provides for payments to be made to a suspended doctor.

Regulation 6 amends the doctors' terms of service to prevent a doctor engaging as a deputy or employing as an assistant either a suspended doctor or a doctor who has been disqualified and who is subject to a declaration by the NHS Tribunal that he is not fit to be engaged in any capacity in the provision of general medical services.

Regulation 7 includes “Temazepam Soft Gelatin Gel-Filled Capsules” in the list in Schedule 10 to the principal Regulations, which lists drugs and other substances which may not be prescribed by general medical practitioners for supply in the course of pharmaceutical services under the National Health Service Act 1977.