Posted by James Sage, Partner
The Court of Appeal has today delivered care providers a lifeline, saying that they do not have to pay staff the National Minimum Wage when working ‘sleep-in’ shifts. The decision lifts an estimated £400m burden from care providers that would …
Posted by Angharad Rayner, Solicitor
The skills shortage hitting the NHS has triggered a relaxation of some immigration rules for doctors and nurses coming to the UK to work. The changes which will come into effect on 6 July 2018 will also affect migrant doctors and nurses in the private sector. This is welcome news for care providers with nursing care services as there is a significant shortage of nurses in the sector.
Posted by Sara Isenberg, Associate
‘I am not sure if they have capacity to make that decision?’ Have you ever thought that about a service user? If you were concerned about a service user’s mental capacity to make a decision do you feel confident about what steps you would need to take? Do you know what components are necessary to make an assessment meaningful?
Posted by Hazel Phillips,
Hazel Phillips in our Health & Social Care team provides an update on CMA guidance on how care providers should comply with consumer legislation in respect of service user contracts.
Posted by Pip Galland, Associate
25 May is nearly upon us, and there are only 3 working days left for you to finalise your preparations for GDPR, which will affect all businesses, including organisations in the health and social care sector. But what are the key points that you should be thinking about if you are in the care sector?
Posted by Helen Lucas, Associate
New regulations and statutory guidance which came into force in Wales on 2 April 2018 are set to impact on providers of domiciliary care by introducing new requirements to ensure fair treatment of their workers.
Posted by James Sage, Partner
The issue of whether ‘standby’ (on-call) time is working time was recently considered by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the Belgian case of Ville de Nivelles v Matzak.
Posted by James Sage, Partner
Mencap’s appeal against a finding that its sleep-in shifts are working time under the minimum wage regulations was heard by the Court of Appeal in March. The judgment was reserved but will hopefully be delivered by the end of May 2018, if not sooner.
Posted by Aman Hart, Senior Associate
The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee has published a series of guidance documents to assist community pharmacy contractors in attaining General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance.
Posted by Aman Hart, Senior Associate
More than half of care home places in the UK are comprised by local authority-funded residents. However, due to many factors, not least the negotiating power of local authorities and the squeeze on their finances, it is thought that local authority fees are provided near to or at cost for care home providers. Therefore, in order to make this a viable financial model, some care home providers will charge self-funding clients more than their local authority equivalents, which is known as “cross-subsidisation”.
Posted by Nicola Cutler, Associate
In his first speech since taking responsibility for social care reform at the start of the year, Jeremy Hunt has outlined the 7 key principles that will guide the Government’s thinking ahead of the social care Green Paper which is to be published later in 2018.
In this blog, we examine the principles and what these might look like for social care providers.
Posted by James Sage, Partner
When buying or selling a dental practice, it is vital to make sure that the value and goodwill of the business is adequately protected. That’s why you should carefully consider the nature and content of the associate agreements.