skip content up to navigation menus

Client Name: NHS Salford

Client Details: NHS Salford (formerly known as Salford Primary Care Trust) is the only PCT in England to be awarded “excellent” by the Healthcare Commission in both quality of care and use of resources in 2008. It is a forward-looking and ambitious NHS organisation that is responsible for improving the health of people who live in Salford, developing and providing primary and community health services, and securing the provision of high quality services from local hospitals and other care providers.

Work undertaken: We advised Salford PCT on stage 1 of a three party collaboration agreement involving a hospital trust and a university, to develop a combined patient database and software tools to enable the interrogation of data for the benefit of the NHS and third parties.

In what is a leading edge project for the NHS, we provided structural advice on the transaction shape and significant data protection and intellectual property input.

We facilitated stage 1 of the collaboration to close within an agreed timescale by working collaboratively with the other NHS party. Stage 1, which was completed at the end of June 2009, demonstrates the potential to use and manipulate existing NHS data in new ways for the advancement of treatments and ultimate patient benefit.

Stage 2 of the collaboration will involve a shift away from the current collaboration agreement to setting up a new three party joint venture company, which will be a vehicle for IP ownership and the generation of revenue from private sector sources for the benefit of the NHS. This phase is enabled by work to date.

This project illustrates our full IT and IP service and involved expertise in the purchasing of IT systems, infrastructure and software, software support, maintenance and hosting. In common with many technology projects that we advise on, data protection and online regulatory compliance were important elements.

The services have been performed to a high standard and were delivered on time with no concerns.  They fully met our requirements and some of the work was quite complex and leading edge in respect of the establishment of the joint venture and handling of intellectual property. Hempsons have been an excellent provider of legal services to the PCT.