Explanatory note

These Regulations amend, in respect of England, the National Health Service Trusts (Membership and Procedure) Regulations 1990 (“the 1990 Regulations”) which make provision in connection with the membership and procedure of NHS trusts established under Part I of the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990.

The amendments made to regulation 2 provide that if an NHS trust provides high security psychiatric services and other mental health services the maximum number of NHS trust directors, excluding the chairman, shall be fourteen and the maximum number of executive directors shall be seven. The amendments made to regulation 4 provide that in these circumstances the executive directors of the NHS trust shall include a chief officer with responsibility for high security psychiatric services.

The amendment to regulation 11(5) provides that the chairmen and non-officer members of certain Special Health Authorities may be appointed as non-executive directors of NHS trusts. The amendment to regulation 11(6) provides that a chairman or a non-officer member of the Ashworth, Broadmoor or Rampton Hospital Authorities may be appointed as a non-executive director of an NHS trust during that trust’s preparatory period.

The amendment of the definition of “health service body” (regulation 1(2)) and the insertion of a new regulation 11(7) provide that being a chairman or member of a Primary Care Trust will disqualify a person from being appointed as a chairman or non-executive director of an NHS trust, except if the person is the chairman or a non-officer member of a Primary Care Trust during its preparatory period.