Part 6: Miscellaneous Pharmaceutical services Section 161: Pharmaceutical services: remuneration in respect of vaccines etc
Subsections (1) and (2) amend Section 164 of the NHS Act 2006 and Section 88 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006 respectively to amend the powers that enable regulations to be made to establish different payment arrangements for special medicinal products (compared to other medicinal products) to include vaccines and immunisations, medicines or drugs used for preventing or treating pandemic or potential pandemic diseases, and associated products. The regulations could include, for example, calculation of remuneration by means of obtaining quotes, but most significantly, in practice, they could provide for circumstances where remuneration would not be provided, in particular where products were centrally procured.
	Subsection (1)(a) substitutes for "special medicinal products", previously the only type of product for which regulations could provide for different payment arrangements, a list comprising the following:
Drugs or medicines that can be used for the purposes of vaccination or immunisation of people against disease; and any products that may be used in connection with the supply or administration of such drugs or medicines.
Other drugs or medicines that may be used for preventing or treating a disease which at the time regulations are made the Secretary of State considers to be either a pandemic disease or at risk of becoming a pandemic disease; and anything used in connection with the supply or administration of such drugs or medicines.
A special medicinal product, which is an unlicensed medicinal product supplied as outlined in regulation 167 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012.
	Subsection (1)(b) makes amendments consequential to the new list outlined in subsection (1)(a).
	Subsection (1)(c) removes the definition of special medicinal product from subsection (8E) of section 164 as this is now included in the list at new subsection (8A)(e).
	For England, subsection (1)(d) specifies that where regulations are made with respect to medicines or drugs that are used for preventing or treating a disease which the Secretary of State considers to be either a pandemic disease or at risk of becoming a pandemic disease the Secretary of State must revoke the regulations within such a period as the Secretary of State considers reasonable, once the disease to which the measures relate is no longer pandemic or at risk of becoming pandemic.
	Subsection (2) replicates subsection (1) provisions regarding England for Wales, by amendment of section 88 of the National Health Service (Wales) Act 2006. Explanations for subsections (2)(a)-(2)(c) are consistent with those for subsections (1)(a)-(1)(c) outlined above. The only exception is regarding (2)(d) where Welsh Ministers, rather than the Secretary of State, are responsible for deciding that what they consider a pandemic disease or a disease at risk of becoming a pandemic disease is no longer in this category, at which point measures relating to medicines or drugs used for preventing or treating the disease must be revoked within such period as the Welsh Ministers consider reasonable.