FHS Appeal Unit
In April 2005, the role of the NHSLA expanded to include the functions of another Special Health Authority, the former Family Health Services Appeal Authority. The work of the former Authority is now carried out by the NHSLA’s Family Health Services Appeal Unit.
The purpose of the Appeal Unit is to improve the provision of healthcare by ensuring prompt, fair and reasoned resolution of disputes between primary care practitioners (GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists) and their local Primary Care Trusts. The Appeal Unit’s main functions include:
- Determining appeals against PCT decisions concerning the provision of pharmaceutical services such as the proposed opening of a new pharmacy or the provision of dispensing services by GPs
- Dealing with contractual disputes between GPs/dentists and their local PCTs under the new GP and dental contracts
- Handling disputes over the assessment of GP Registrars’ allowances under the Directions to Strategic Health Authorities concerning GP Registrars, which came into force in November 2003
- Handling other occasional appeals and applications under various Regulations governing primary care
- Maintaining a database of individual practitioners who have been suspended, removed from the local list by their PCT and hence not permitted to practise in that PCT area, or nationally disqualified from practising in the NHS.
The Appeal Unit also provides the secretariat for a separate independent tribunal, the Family Health Services Appeal Authority. The tribunal determines appeals by primary care practitioners against PCT decisions either to remove them from the PCT’s list of practitioners permitted to practise in the NHS, or not to permit them to join it in the first place.
Detailed statistics on the work of the Appeal Unit are given in NHSLA Factsheet 6.