Provision of medical staff or medical care?

The taxpayer supplied medical consultants and general practitioners to an intermediary agency which them supplied the doctors to hospitals usually NHS trusts. It claimed this was an exempt supply of medical care (VATA 1994 Sch 9 gp 7) because it was providing medical care not staff. HMRC said the services were standard rated because the taxpayer was supplying staff.

The First-tier Tribunal found for HMRC finding that although the trusts did not have control over the consultants they did have ‘operational control’. The taxpayer appealed to the Upper Tribunal.

In the first three grounds of its appeal the taxpayer claimed the First-tier Tribunal had applied the wrong test of control by examining the framework in which the consultants operated rather than control over the clinical decision making. The Upper Tribunal did not agree. It said the lower tribunal’s analysis was based on...