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Keep it legal – informed consent
Montgomery five years on: how has the landscape changed for medical practitioners?
Newsflash: The HSJ and Hempsons webinar on the Fit and Proper Person Test
The Fit and Proper Person Test is meant to ensure that anyone at director level in the NHS has the attributes and values needed for the job.
Newsflash: Private GP Services – not under my roof!
Recently published NHS England guidance on the new GMS contract (Click here to read guidance), outlines a new blanket ban on GPs advertising and hosting private GP services from within their surgery premises. The changes mark a sea change and are potentially a major threat to a number of existing practice business models.
Sharing staff across a network
The concept behind primary care networks is to bring practices together and work in an integrated way across Directed Enhanced Services (DES). The payments for DES include staff, so they will be working across the practices and different employers.
Hempsons’ Employment Newsbrief
Welcome to our Summer 2019 edition of Hempsons’ Employment Newsbrief.
Higher standards expected of NHS trusts before dismissal for capability
The recent case of Muller v London Ambulance Service NHS Trust has emphasised the need for NHS Trusts, as large, sophisticated employers with significant administrative resources, to take a more cautious approach and exhaust every other option before dismissing an employee by reason of capability. Mr Muller’s dismissal was found to be unfair and discriminatory, despite the fact that he had been absent from work for a year and had no predicted return-to-work date at the time he was dismissed.
Don’t do Facebook
Facebook is not a good place to air workplace grievances as Mr Atherton discovered in his claim of unfair dismissal against his employer, Bensons Vending Limited. It appears staff morale was low after the company reduced its discretionary Christmas bonus due to financial constraints – the bonus becoming a gift of a bottle of alcohol.
Disciplinary procedures and police investigation
In the case of North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust v Gregg, the Courts looked at when an employer should halt its own internal procedures if the police are also investigating the same matter.
The cap on public sector exit pay rears its head again
The government has recently launched a consultation exercise in relation to the introduction of a £95,000 cap on exit payments made to public sector staff.
A review of the Fit and Proper Persons Test
On 6 February 2019, the Government published Tom Kark QC’s report of his review of the “Fit and Proper Persons Test” (FPPT).
Case Law Update: abandoning a procurement fails to dispose of challenge
The recent judgment in the case of Amey Highways Limited and West Sussex County Council [2019] EWHC 1291 (TCC) deals in detail with the implications of abandonment and the effect of an abandonment decision on an existing claim. The Council had undertaken a competitive dialogue process to select a provider of highways maintenance services. Amey were unsuccessful in that competition by a difference in score of 0.03% against the winning bidder, Ringway.
GMC Independent Review of Medical Manslaughter recommends sweeping changes to regain the profession’s trust and improve qu...
Since 2011, healthcare professionals have been transfixed by the twists and turns of the investigations and hearings in relation to the trainee paediatrician, Dr Bawa-Garba and her nursing colleague Ms Amaro through their protracted criminal, coronial and regulatory processes. Dr Bawa-Garba’s treatment in particular by her regulator, the GMC, and its widely criticised decision to appeal its own Tribunal’s determination not to erase her led to the erosion of doctor’s confidence in medical regulation.
Have the lessons from Lancashire Care NHS FT & Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS FT v Lancashire County Council been l...
Have the lessons from Lancashire Care NHS FT & Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS FT v Lancashire County Council been learnt? It is nearly a year since the case of Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Lancashire County Council was determined. Hempsons advised the two foundation trusts in successfully challenging the Council’s process, which had been run under the Light Touch Regime.
Funding to help your practice change delivery model – you may be eligible for Government funding
We are part of the Go Mutual consortium that has successfully secured funding from DCMS to create and support mutuals. Mutuals cover organisations providing public services (which would include GP Practices holding GMS or PMS contracts) which are considering a new structure which has some element of staff- led representation, governance or ownership.