Health and Community Care Committee, 06 Oct 1999

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 6, 1999

Official Report 172KB pdf

---

National Health Service (Service Committees and Tribunal) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 1999 (SSI 1999/53)

The explanatory note states that these regulations

"also amend the principal Regulations to introduce a provision whereby excessive sight testing or excessive issuing of vouchers may be investigated".

I was rather confused about how that would be decided. What is the definition of excessive?

The problem is that whenever an item of service, such as tests, can be paid for by the health service, it is possible for practitioners to undertake those tests more frequently than is clinically necessary to obtain additional items of service. Therefore, there should be provision for investigation, which is usually carried out by a peer group. It is a benchmarking exercise in which outliers are examined. If a practitioner starts carrying out four times as many tests on a community as before or starts carrying out repeated tests on individuals, and those are permitted under the item of service claim, the situation can be investigated.

Fair enough. That reassures me. However, we do not know whether that is the case in this instance—we do not know what triggers the procedure, and we do not know what mechanism exists for conducting the investigation. That causes me some concern.

Is the committee happy to agree that the attention of the Parliament need not be drawn to the instrument? It is agreed.