UK Offence Report

Enforcement notices relating to Commission Regulation 2016/161: persons authorised to supply medicinal…

regulation 255A(2)(e) of The Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2019

This offence was read from the text as made, and no revised version was available, so a later revocation could not be ruled out. Check the current text at legislation.gov.uk.

What the provision says

e warning the person that that

a failure to comply with the enforcement notice constitutes an offence under paragraph (5) and that further action may be taken in respect of the contravention unless the requirements specified in the notice are met.

Text as made, from legislation.gov.uk. © Crown copyright, reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. This is the text as originally made; later amendments are not shown here.

Who it binds, and what has to be proved

Binds
a person
Conduct
failing to comply with a notice or direction
Fault element
Strict liability
Burden of proof
No statutory defence — prosecution proves everything

The prosecution must prove that the conduct happened. This is a strict liability offence as drafted: the provision uses no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence, so there is no need to show that a person meant to do it, knew about it, or was careless.

Intention, knowledge and carelessness are irrelevant to guilt. They may still matter a great deal to sentence.

The provision states no defence, so the prosecution bears the burden on every element of the offence.

Classifier’s reasoning: no word of intention, knowledge, recklessness or negligence in the offence or its provision.

What would breach regulation 255A(2)(e)?

These are illustrations, not law. They are generated from the provision’s own words to show the shape of the offence. Whether any particular conduct is caught depends on the full text, on any amendment since, and on the facts.

  1. Being served with a notice under the Human Medicines (Amendment) Regulations 2019 and doing nothing by the date it specifies.
  2. Doing part of what the notice requires, where it required all of it.
  3. Disagreeing with the notice and ignoring it, rather than using whatever appeal the instrument provides.

Penalty

Mode of trial
Either way — magistrates’ court or Crown Court
Maximum fine
Unlimited
Maximum prison (summary)
Not determined
Maximum prison (on indictment)
2 years

'to a fine' with no stated maximum.

Sentencing

Offences of this kind are usually sentenced under the guidelines below. This is a mapping by subject, not a finding about this provision, and the links go to a search of the Sentencing Council’s own site.

Prosecution figures

No published per-offence figure was found for this provision, and it could not be matched to a Ministry of Justice offence code. Offences created by statutory instrument very largely do not have one. Absence of a figure is not evidence that the offence is unused.

Status and lifecycle

Current status
Status not determined
Made
14 January 2019
In force from
9 February 2019
Extent
Not stated

How this was established: read from the text as made; no revised version available, so later revocation could not be ruled out.

What the instrument is for

(This note is not part of the Regulations) — the explanatory note published with the instrument, © Crown copyright.

These Regulations amend the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 (“the 2012 Regulations”) in order to implement— points 8, 9, 11 and 12 of Article 1 of Directive 2011/62/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2011 amending Directive 2001/83/EC on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use, as regards the prevention of the entry into the legal supply chain of falsified medicinal products (“Directive 2011/62/EU”); Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/161 of 2 October 2015 supplementing Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council by laying down detailed rules for the safety features appearing on the packaging of medicinal products for human use (“the Delegated Regulation”). These regulations further amend the 2012 Regulations in order to widen the type of products containing naloxone hydrochloride that drug treatment services are able to supply for the purpose of saving life in an emergency and to introduce serious shortage protocols. Regulations 3 to 8, 10 and 12 to 15 amend the 2012 Regulations in order to ensure that the provisions of the Delegated Regulation are enforceable in the United Kingdom. Regulations 11, 17 and 19 amend the 2012 Regulations in order to transpose the changes made to Directive 2001/83 by points 8, 9, 11 and 12 of Article 1 of Directive 2011/62/EU. Regulation 9 amends the 2012 Regulations in order to provide for the sale or supply of prescription only medicines by retail pharmacy businesses under a severe shortage protocol issued by the Ministers. The Ministers will have powers to issue such protocols where, in their opinion, the United Kingdom or part of the United Kingdom is experiencing or may experience a severe shortage of particular prescription only medicines. The protocols will allow for substitution, in restricted circumstances, of a different quantity of a prescription only medicine, or a different prescription only medicine, to that ordered by the prescriber. Regulation 16 amends regulation 346 of the 2012 Regulations so that the new provisions are subject to review by the Secretary of State. Regulation 18 amends Schedule 17 of the 2012 Regulations in order to allow naloxone hydrochloride that is for non-parenteral administration to be supplied by drug treatment services for the purpose of saving life in an emergency. A transposition note is published with the Explanatory Memorandum alongside the instrument on www.legislation.gov.uk. Copies may also be obtained from the Department of Health and Social Care, 2E14 Quarry House, Leeds, LS2 7UE.

Read the full note and every offence in this instrument

How this became law

This instrument became law without a vote to approve it. A motion to stop it being law was tabled.

Neither House could have amended it. A statutory instrument is put to each House as a whole thing, to be approved or not; the Houses can reject an instrument or record their regret, but they cannot change a word of it. That is the constitutional position for every offence on this site.

The full procedural history →

What Parliament said

Mentions of this instrument in Hansard. Parliamentary material is reused under the Open Parliament Licence v3.0.

Other offences in the same instrument

How this was identified as an offence

Everything above rests on the judgement that this provision creates a criminal offence, rather than mentioning one. That judgement is made by rule, from the words of the provision, and this is the rule that made it — with a confidence of 0.88.

Basis
the provision says the conduct “is an offence”; the provision says the conduct “constitutes an offence”
Confidence
0.88 of 1.00

A provision that states a penalty for an offence created elsewhere can read very like one that creates an offence, and the rules can mistake the one for the other. If the text quoted above sets a penalty for something made an offence by another provision, treat the classification on this page with that in mind, and read the instrument.

Check the source