Commentary on Sections Part 1 – Quality and Delivery of NHS Services Detailed explanation of provisions Section 13: Direct payments: minor and consequential amendments
176.Section 13 introduces Schedule 1, which contains minor and consequential amendments relating to direct payments.
Schedule 1: Direct payments: minor and consequential amendments
177.Paragraph 1 amends the National Assistance Act 1948 to include accommodation in respect of which a direct payment is made within the definition at section 24(6A) of the 1948 Act of NHS accommodation referred to at section 24(6).
178.Paragraph 2 amends the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 to clarify that pilots in section 63(2)(bb) are pilots set up under section 134(1) of the NHS Act or section 92(1) of the NHS (Wales) Act.
179.Paragraph 3 has the effect that references to after-care services in the Mental Health Act 1983 include services provided in respect of which a direct payment for social care or a direct payment for health care is made.
180.Paragraph 4 amends section 2(5) of the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 with the effect that the authorised representative of a disabled person may at any reasonable time visit him or her and interview him or her in private in hospital accommodation that has been procured using a direct payment made under new section 12A(1).
181.Paragraphs 5(1) and (2) amend section 45 of the 2003 Act. The amendments have the effect that the obligations of a Welsh NHS body pursuant to Chapter 2 of the 2003 Act apply where the Welsh body provides health care in respect of which an English NHS body has made direct payments, until sections 45 and 46 of the 2003 Act are repealed on the coming into force of paragraphs 37 and 38 of Schedule 5 to the 2008 Act.
182.Paragraphs 6 to 11 provide for amendments to the NHS Act.
183.Paragraph 7 has the effect that references to various pilot schemes elsewhere in the NHS Act become references to pilot schemes established under section 134(2) of the NHS Act, which relates to pharmaceutical services, so as to distinguish them from direct payment pilot schemes set up under new section 12C(1)(a) of the Act.
184.Paragraph 8 confines the definition of a “pilot scheme” set out at section 134(2) so that it applies only to that Part 7 of the NHS Act, rather than the whole Act.
185.Paragraph 9 amends the order-making power of the Secretary of State at section 246(3) with the effect that an order may vary the descriptions of exempt information at Schedule 17 to the NHS Act to include descriptions in connection with services in respect of which direct payments are made by a body, where an overview and scrutiny committee exercises functions in relation to the body. Under the Local Government Act 1972 the public may be excluded from meetings of an overview and scrutiny committee to prevent disclosure of exempt information during an item of business.
186.Paragraph 10 amends provision for the procedure that applies to a statutory instrument under the NHS Act in section 272(6) so that an order mentioned in new section 12C(7) under new section 12C(8) or 12C(10) is subject to approval by each House of Parliament under the affirmative resolution procedure.
187.Paragraph 11 removes the entry for “pilot scheme” from the index of defined expressions at section 276 of the NHS Act, in consequence of the changes made by paragraphs 7 and 8.
188.Paragraphs 12 to 15 provide for amendments to the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.
189.The amendments made by paragraph 13 provide that the Secretary of State (or an NHS body to whom the Secretary of State has delegated a function of making direct payments) or a Primary Care Trust acting under regulations (in the case of section 117 after-care) is not a regulated activity provider by virtue of anything the Secretary of State or it does in connection with the making of direct payments under new sections 12A to 12D.
190.The amendment made by paragraph 14(2) has the effect that making a direct payment is controlled activity to the extent that it is not a regulated activity relating to children, and by sub-paragraph (3) that health care, treatment or therapy which is provided to a child out of direct payments is controlled activity.
191.The amendments made by paragraph (15) have the effect that a person who has attained the age of 18 and to whom, or on whose behalf, direct payments are made is a vulnerable adult for the purposes of the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act 2006.