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Hempsons’ Healthcare Newsbrief 2018

Welcome to this autumn edition of Hempsons’ healthcare newsbrief. The newsbrief is available in full here. It has been a busy few months for the NHS in the legal system with some ground-breaking decisions on key areas such as withdrawing clinically-assisted nutrition and hydration, fitness to practice and… Read More

The fit and proper persons requirement

The fit and proper persons requirement was introduced on 27 November 2014 (for NHS providers) to much fanfare with the stated aim of making NHS providers and their directors more accountable and to encourage a more open and transparent culture. Now, four years on, we look at how the requirement… Read More

A summary of the Dr Bawa-Garba case – and what this may mean for trusts

Background On 18 February 2011, six-year-old Jack Adcock, who had Down’s syndrome and a heart condition, was admitted to Leicester Royal Infirmary with sickness and diarrhoea. Dr Bawa-Garba, a trainee paediatrician, was responsible for the care of Jack and has been found to have been responsible for a series of… Read More

Big Data, Health Data

How to unlock the potential of health data within a compliant information governance framework. The NHS holds what are arguably the largest and most detailed digital, linkable (and thus potentially interrogatable) databases of healthcare data in the world. The potential for using this NHS data for medical research and the… Read More

Can a disability account for bad behaviour?

A recent Employment Tribunal decision serves as a timely reminder that where conduct issues are said to arise from an underlying mental health condition, employers should be cautious of departing from medical opinion. Facts Ms Wheeley was a long-standing employee of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and held a senior management… Read More

Inadequate record keeping invalidates contract award

Hempsons recently acted on behalf of Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust and Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (the “Trusts”) in successfully challenging Lancashire County Council (the “Council”) in relation to a procurement challenge for the provision of 0 – 19 services. The Trusts challenged the Council’s decision to award… Read More

Digital transformation – are you prepared?

Digital transformation is crucial for the NHS as it seeks a sustainable future and to meet expectations of high quality care. A number of different programmes are now in place to support this, including the NHS and industry ‘test bed’ partnerships, local STP and new care model projects and, most… Read More