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’.