5.The Act's purpose is to provide a national administrative system to ensure that all cases in which recoupment of NHS charges is possible are identified and that the charges are collected and passed on to the hospitals which provided treatment. It also provides for the method of calculating the cost to the NHS to be changed by regulation in order to reflect more closely the actual costs of treatment.
6.The Road Traffic Act 1988 did not extend to Northern Ireland and so the province is starting from a different legislative base. It is currently intended that legislation will be introduced bringing it into line with the rest of the UK but on a longer timescale.
The Act covers
	the new administrative system (Sections 1 to 5 and Section 13)
	provisions for review and appeal against charges (Sections 6 to 10)
	information gathering powers (Sections 11 and 12)
The Act