No VAT For Certain Healthcare Professionals

HMRC has recently announced that from 1st April 2020, services provided by certain healthcare professionals will be treated at zero rate for VAT. The list of “relevant practitioners” now includes qualified prescribers and practitioners.

Just to further clarify, the “relevant practitioners” also include:

• community practitioner nurse prescribers
• nurse independent prescribers
• optometrists
• independent prescribers
• The pharmacist independent prescribers
• The physiotherapist independent prescribers
• The podiatrist independent prescribers
• supplementary prescribers, as defined in article 1(2) of the Prescription Only Medicines (Human Use) Order 1997(a)
• EA health professionals as defined in section 213 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012

The Services that are not exempt from VAT

The following services are taxable at the standard rate:

• health services not performed by an appropriately qualified and registered health professional, except when either directly supervised by such a person or provided within a hospital or within other state-regulated institutions providing healthcare
• services not aimed at the prevention, diagnosis, treatment or cure of a disease or the  health disorder, such as paternity testing and the writing of articles for journals
• services directly supervised by a pharmacist
• general administrative services such as countersigning passport applications and providing character references
• Health professional staff supplies are subject to VAT, except when they are exempt under the nursing agencies’ concession.

If you are a health professional registered on the appropriate statutory register, such as a medical practitioner, dentist, nurse, osteopath, dietitian, etc., and ALL of the services that you provide to your patients pass HMRC’s second test for medical services, you are exempt from registration for VAT.

Next Step:

If you are looking to know more about VAT exemptions, please feel free to Book a free consultation now.