Explanatory note

These Regulations further amend the National Health Service (Service Committees and Tribunal) Regulations 1974 (“the principal Regulations”) which provide for the investigation and determination of questions whether doctors, dentists, chemists and opticians providing services under the National Health Service have failed to comply with their terms of service. The amendments are made principally in consequence of the reconstitution of Family Practitioner Committees as Family Health Services Authorities under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.

Regulation 2(1) of the principal Regulations is amended to substitute a new definition of “optician” and to insert a definition of “pharmacist” (regulation 2).

Regulation 3 amends regulation 3 of the principal Regulations, Paragraph (1) is amended to remove the requirement that the consent of the Secretary of State must be obtained before an Authority may establish more than one of the same kind of service committee. Amendments are made to paragraph (2), in particular to enable an Authority to appoint lay members of a service committee otherwise than from among the lay members of the Authority, and paragraph (3) is amended to require the chairman of a service committee to be appointed in the first instance by the Authority rather than by the members of the service committee. A new paragraph (5A) is inserted to make further provision for the circumstances in which the chairman and members of a service committee are to cease to hold office, and paragraph (6) is substituted to include new definitions of “lay person” and “professional person”.

Regulation 13 of the principal Regulations is amended to remove the requirement that the chairman of a Denture Conciliation Committee should be a member of the Authority (regulation 4), and words are added at the end of the proviso in regulation 15(1) of the principal Regulations to require a dentist to submit within one month any representations he may wish to make against a proposal by the Secretary of State to require him to obtain approval from the Dental Practice Board before undertaking certain kinds of treatment (regulation 5). A new regulation 53A is inserted in the principal Regulations to provide for the circumstances in which documents connected with a complaint or reference under Part II of those Regulations may be referred by the Authority or the Secretary of State to the respondent’s professional body (regulation 6).