Explanatory Notes to The Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Act 1999

1.These explanatory notes relate to the Road Traffic (NHS Charges) Act 1999 which received Royal Assent on 10 March 1999. They have been prepared by the Department of Health in order to assist the reader in understanding the Act. They do not form part of the Act and have not been endorsed by Parliament.

2.The notes need to be read in conjunction with the Act. They are not, and are not meant to be, a comprehensive description of the Act. So where a section or part of a section does not seem to require any explanation or comment, none is given.

3.When a person receives:then the hospital can require the compensator to meet some of the costs of the victim's treatment.

• treatment at a hospital (other than one run for profit) for injuries sustained in a road traffic accident;

• and subsequently makes a successful claim for compensation for personal injury against the holder of a compulsory motor vehicle insurance policy;

4.This provision has existed in road traffic legislation for more than sixty years and is currently found in sections 157 and 158 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. However it is not supported by any central administrative arrangements for collection of the charges due. Action is taken locally by hospitals and performance is patchy. Nationally the amount of money recovered is far short of the potential sum. In his Budget speech of 2 July 1997 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the Government would take steps to recover the full costs of treatment in these cases.

5.The Act's purpose is to provide a national administrative system to ensure that all cases in which recoupment of NHS charges is possible are identified and that the charges are collected and passed on to the hospitals which provided treatment. It also provides for the method of calculating the cost to the NHS to be changed by regulation in order to reflect more closely the actual costs of treatment.

6.The Road Traffic Act 1988 did not extend to Northern Ireland and so the province is starting from a different legislative base. It is currently intended that legislation will be introduced bringing it into line with the rest of the UK but on a longer timescale.

6.The Act covers

• the new administrative system (Sections 1 to 5 and Section 13)

• provisions for review and appeal against charges (Sections 6 to 10)

• information gathering powers (Sections 11 and 12)