National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978

52Additional provision as to charges under section 50

(1)There shall be made in respect of any exercise of the section 50 power such charges as the Secretary of State may in accordance with subsections (2) and (3) determine. '

(2)Without prejudice to the generality of the Secretary of State's section 50 power to make and recover charges for any use which he may under that section allow to be made of any accommodation or services provided under this Act, the Secretary of State may in pursuance of subsection (1) determine different rates or scales of charges—

(a)for different accommodation or services at different health service hospitals or different classes of such hospitals;

(b)for different forms or classes of treatment;

(c)in relation to patients who are, and patients who are not, ordinarily resident in Great Britain ;

(d)generally for different accommodation and for different services and in relation to different circumstances.

(3)The charges determined in pursuance of subsection (1)—

(a)shall be such as will ensure, so far as is practicable, that no increase in the expenses incurred by the Secretary of State under this Act results from any exercise of the section 50 power ;

(b)shall include such amounts as appear to the Secretary of State proper and reasonable in respect of costs appearing to him to be properly attributable to capital account; and

(c)in the case of charges for services provided to a private patient at a health service hospital by a whole-time consultant, shall be not less than would be charged by a part-time consultant for providing similar services in similar circumstances to a private patient of his.

(4)Where a Health Board receives any sum charged under section 50 for services provided to a private patient by a whole-time consultant—

(a)the Board shall retain that sum and use it for the purposes of research and development in medicine or dentistry, but

(b)if the services in question were provided by a consultant employed by a medical or dental school or university, the Board shall, if so directed by the Secretary of State, pay the sum to that school or university to use for those purposes.

(5)Nothing in this section or in section 51 prevents the Secretary of State from allowing any medical or dental practitioner employed by a Health Board to make use of any accommodation or services provided by virtue of this Act to the extent to which the practitioner would be entitled to make such use under the terms of that employment if those terms were as they were or would have been at the passing of the [1976 c. 83.] Health Services Act 1976.

(6)In this section—

• " whole-time consultant" and " part-time consultant" mean respectively a consultant employed whole-time or part-time by a Health Board, medical or dental school or university.