Compassionate and Rural Medicine (Scotland) Act 2017 1

MODEL
SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

Compassionate and Rural Medicine (Scotland) Bill

SP Bill 19

(as amended at Stage 2)

An Act of the Scottish Parliament to make provision about a programme of secondment for National
Health Service staff to remote and developing countries; and for connected purposes.

Programme of secondment

1 Preparation of report of areas in need

(1) Each year, before or on a date the Scottish Ministers may by regulations prescribe, the
Common Services Agency must produce a report on the availability of registered medical
practitioners.
(2) A report under subsection (1) must include
(a) a list of each Health Board where the mean number of patients cared for by a
registered medical practitioner employed by the Health Board exceeds eight,
(b) for each Health Board identified under paragraph (a)
(i) the number of registered medical practitioners employed by the Health
Board, and
(ii) the number of additional registered medical practitioners the Health Board
would be required to employ to avoid being listed by virtue of paragraph
(a), and
(c) a list of every medical aid charity.
(3) In subsection (2)(c), medical aid charity means a body
(a) included in the Scottish Charity Register,
(b) the charitable purposes of which include the purpose specified in
(i) section 7(2)(a) (the prevention or relief of poverty),
(ii) section 7(2)(d) (the advancement of health), or
(iii) section 7(2)(e) (the saving of lives),
of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, and
(c) which performs a significant portion of its work outside the United Kingdom.
(4) A report prepared under subsection (1) must be laid before the Scottish Parliament.

2 Programme of secondment
(1) The Common Services Agency must make arrangements necessary for the operation of a

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2 Compassionate and Rural Medicine (Scotland) Act 2017

programme of secondment where

(a) a registered medical practitioner who is employed by a Health Board may enrol in
the programme,
(b) each registered medical practitioner enrolled in the programme is seconded for the
period of 1 year (the secondment period),
(c) the enrollee is seconded to a body identified under section 1(2)(c) in the latest report
for an aggregate portion of the secondment period not longer than 3 months, and
(d) the enrollee is seconded to a Health Board
(i) identified under section 1(2)(a) in the latest report, and
(ii) which is likely to benefit from the secondment of the enrollee,
for at least 6 months of the remainder of the secondment period.
(2) Nothing in subsection (1) is to be read as
(a) requiring the Common Services Agency to second an enrollee if no position for
which the enrollees skills or qualifications are suitable is identified,
(b) requiring an enrollee to be seconded for the entirety of the period specified in
subsection (1)(b), or
(c) restricting an enrollee from working outside the United Kingdom while seconded
under section (1)(c).
(3) The Common Services Agency must secure that at least 1,000 registered medical
practitioners are able to enrol in the programme.
(4) In this section, latest report means the latest report prepared under section 1(1).

3 Powers of the Scottish Ministers

The Scottish Ministers may by regulations
(a) modify the mean specified in section 1(2)(a),
(b) modify the information required under section 1(2)(b),
(c) modify the definition of medical aid charity given in section 1(3),
(d) modify the durations specified in section 2(1),
(e) modify the minimum specified in section 2(3).

General

4 Duration
(1) The secondment programme provisions expire at the end of the period of 5 years beginning
with the day this section comes into force.
(2) The Scottish Ministers may by regulations, before the end of that 5 year period, provide
that the secondment programme provisions are to continue to have effect despite
subsection (1).
(3) In this section, secondment programme provisions means sections 1 to 3.

5 Regulations
Regulations under sections 3 and 4(2) are subject to the affirmative procedure.
Compassionate and Rural Medicine (Scotland) Act 2017 3

6 Interpretation
In this Act
the Common Services Agency means the body constituted under section 10 of the
National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978;
Health Board means a Health Board or Special Health Board constituted under section
2 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978.

7 Commencement
Sections 2 and 4 of this Act come into force at the end of the period of 180 days beginning
with the day of Royal Assent.

8 Short title
The short title of this Act is the Compassionate and Rural Medicine (Scotland) Act 2017.