National Health Service (Vocational Training) Regulations 1979
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Citation | SI 1979/1644 |
| Year | 1979 |
1979 No. 1644
NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE, ENGLAND AND WALES
The National Health Service (Vocational Training) Regulations 197910thDecember 1979
18thDecember 1979
16thFebruary 1980
The Secretary of State for Social Services, in exercise of powers conferred upon him by sections 30, 31 and 32 of the National Health Service Act 1977(a), and of all other powers enabling him in that behalf, hereby makes the following regulations:—
Citation and commencement
1. These regulations may be cited as the National Health Service (Vocational Training) Regulations 1979 and shall come into operation on 16th February 1980.
Interpretation
2.—(1) In these regulations, unless the context otherwise requires—
"the Act" means the National Health Service Act 1977;
"certificate of prescribed experience" means a certificate issued pursuant to regulation 6;
"certificate of equivalent experience" means a certificate issued pursuant to regulation 7;
"health authority" includes a person responsible for the management of a hospital which is not a health service hospital;
"the Joint Committee" means the Joint Committee on Postgraduate Training for General Practice;
"practitioner" means a person registered as a fully registered medical practitioner and, for the purposes of regulation 5(1)(b)(ii) includes a medical practitioner with limited registration pursuant to the provisions of section 22 of the Medical Act 1978(b) but not otherwise;
"trainee general practitioner" has the meaning assigned to it in regulations having effect as if made by the Secretary of State under section 29 of the Act, section 19 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978(c) or the provisions of the Health and Personal Social Services (N.I.) Order 1972(d), and includes a practitioner who is being trained in general practice under an arrangement approved by the Armed Services General Practice Approval Board;
(a) 1977 c. 49.
(b) 1978 c. 12.
(c) 1978 c. 29.
(d) S.I. 1972/1265 (N.I. 14).
and any other expression to which a meaning is assigned by the Act (either generally for the purposes of that Act or specially for the purpose of section 31 or section 32 thereof) has that meaning.
(2) Unless the context otherwise requires, any reference in these regulations to a numbered regulation is a reference to the regulation bearing that number in these regulations, and any reference in a regulation to a numbered paragraph is a reference to the paragraph bearing that number in that regulation.
Prescribed day
3.—(1) Except in a case to which the provisions of paragraph (2) apply, the day for the purposes of section 31(1) of the Act shall be 15th February 1981.
(2) Where on 15th February 1981, an application pursuant to the provisions of section 30 of the Act has not been finally determined, the prescribed day for the purposes of section 31(1) of the Act in relation to that application shall be the day on which that application is finally determined.
Certificates and experience required
4.—(1) An applicant who applies to an Area Health Authority after 15th February 1981 for inclusion in that Authority's list of names of practitioners undertaking to provide general medical services pursuant to section 29 of the Act, shall produce as evidence that he is suitably experienced either—
(a) a certificate of prescribed experience or as the case may require, a certificate of equivalent experience, or
(b) a statement of the grounds upon which he claims that he is exempt by virtue of the provisions of regulation 8 from the need to have acquired the prescribed experience, and evidence in support thereof.
(2) On or after that day the entitlement of such an applicant to inclusion in such a list shall be subject to section 31 of the Act and accordingly—
(a) the Medical Practices Committee shall refuse his application if he is not suitably experienced; and
(b) the Area Health Authority in question shall not arrange under section 29 of the Act for him to provide general medical services for persons in its area unless the Medical Practices Committee has granted his application.
Prescribed experience
5.—(1) Subject to the provisions of regulations 7(4) and 8(3), the medical experience needed to satisfy paragraph (a) of section 31(2) of the Act is—
(a) before 16th August 1982 the satisfactory completion of a period or periods of training amounting to at least 12 months whole-time employment or its equivalent as a trainee general practitioner;
(b) on and after 16th August 1982 the satisfactory completion of a period or periods of training amounting to at least 3 years whole-time employment or its equivalent, of which—
(i) at least 12 months whole-time employment or its equivalent shall be training as a trainee general practitioner, and
(ii) the remainder shall be training as a practitioner in educationally approved posts and shall include not less than 6 months whole-time employment or its equivalent in each of two of the following specialties—
General Medicine,
Geriatric Medicine,
Paediatrics,
Psychiatry,
One of Accident and Emergency Medicine or General Surgery,
Any one of Obstetrics or Gynaecology, or Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
(2) The medical experience prescribed in paragraph (1) shall be acquired within not more than 7 years immediately preceding the date of application for a certificate of prescribed experience.
(3) In computing any period of training for the purposes of this regulation there shall be disregarded any period of part-time employment during which the duties of the person employed occupied less than half of the time usually occupied by the duties of persons employed whole-time in similar employment.
(4) On the satisfactory completion of his period of training with a practitioner with whom an applicant has so completed a period of training as a trainee general practitioner, or with a health authority on whose staff an applicant has so completed a period of training in an educationally approved post in any specialty, the practitioner or health authority shall on request give to the applicant a statement in the form set out in the Schedule to these regulations or in a form to the like effect.
(5) For the purposes of this regulation—
(a) "educationally approved post" means—
(i) a post, employment in which is, immediately before the day on which these regulations are made, approved for the purposes of training in a hospital specialty or in the specialty of community medicine by the Royal College or Faculty for that specialty and selected by a Regional...
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