The Act – an Overview
3.The purpose of the Act is to make the necessary legislative changes to allow implementation of the new general medical services contract (GMS contract) for providers of primary medical services. These changes involve restructuring the existing regime under the National Health Service (Scotland) Act (“the 1978 Act”) and the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 (“the 1997 Act”) for the provision of personal and general medical services by Health Boards. Although these services are in substance the same, they are given different labels at present in the legislation according to what arrangements are made to provide them. Arrangements for the provision of personal medical services (PMS) are made under section 17C of the 1978 Act or, in the case of pilot PMS schemes, under section 1 of the 1997 Act. Arrangements for the provision of general medical services (GMS) are made under section 19 of the 1978 Act. The Act abolishes personal medical services provided under section 1 of the 1997 Act and brings all of the other services under a single label – primary medical services. (The restructuring of the existing regime is achieved by textual amendment of the 1978 Act. Accordingly, references in the new sections of that Act to anything being “prescribed” mean prescribed by regulations made by the Scottish Ministers, which will be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of the Parliament. Where changes may be anticipated prospectively to the text of relevant sections of the 1978 Act, the reader should, for the purposes of this Act, assume that the changes are in force. These changes are made by the National Health Service (Primary Care) Act 1997 (c.46); the Health Act 1999 (c.8); the Community Care and Health (Scotland) Act 2002 (asp 5); the Public Appointments and Public Bodies etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 (asp 4); and Article 10(4) of The General and Specialist Medical Practice (Education, Training and Qualifications) Order 2003 (S.I. 2003/1250)).
4.The Act is in two main parts (Provision of primary medical services and General) and 9 sections with a schedule. The sections deal with—
	Health Board functions;
	Section 17C arrangements;
	Pilot schemes;
	General medical services contracts;
	Persons performing primary medical services;
	Assistance and support;
	Ancillary provision;
	Modification of enactments;
	Commencement and short title.