VRDP27200 - Medical and surgical supplies: are the goods ‘medical or surgical appliances designed solely for the relief of a severe abnormality or severe injury’?

There are certain goods which self-evidently qualify as ‘medical appliances designed solely for the relief of a severe abnormality or a severe injury’. These include:

• artificial limbs;
• external breast prostheses;
• heart pacemakers;
• renal haemodialysis units;
• oxygen concentrators; and
• artificial respirators.

Clearly, they relieve a condition which is severe; and since they serve no other useful purpose, they must have been ‘designed solely’.