Capsticks is one of the UK’s leading healthcare law firms, advising over 200 NHS, regulatory, voluntary and private sector healthcare organisations, including the Department of Health, Nuffield Health, Great Ormond Street Hospital, NHS London, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust and the Terrence Higgins Trust. It has offices in London, Birmingham and Leeds, offering a full range of services to its clients.
The firm: Capsticks is well-known for its work with strategic health authorities and NHS trusts. The firm has developed in line with the changing nature of healthcare and provides a full range of legal services to healthcare organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors. Recent assignments have included the July 7th London Bombings Inquest. The firm’s projects group has a portfolio of completed and ongoing healthcare projects, including many PFI, ISTC and NHS LIFT schemes; this includes being the sole legal advisers to Community Health Partnerships (CHP). CHP is 100% owned by the Department of Health (DH) and manages its entire LIFT investment portfolio across 48 LIFT localities. The firm has also carried out a number of major urban redevelopment schemes for mixed uses, including medipark, retail and residential uses.
Clients in the private and voluntary sectors include Nuffield Health, Ramsay Healthcare, Serco, Terrence Higgins Trust, Sue Ryder Care, Nations Healthcare and United Response, as well as private medical malpractice insurers.
Capsticks is committed to continually improving its performance through training, motivating and rewarding its staff and holds the Investors in People standard.
Types of work undertaken: The firm’s work is divided between the clinical law; commercial; dispute resolution; employment; and property departments.
Clinical law: this team acts for the NHS Litigation Authority and deals with a large volume of clinical law advisory matters such as consent-to-treatment cases, and mental health issues in particular. The team has a strong reputation for dealing safely with sensitive and high-profile cases such as the July 7th London Bombings Inquest and judicial reviews of major service reconfiguration decisions. The team also deals with medical malpractice insurers, including disasters arising from obstetric accidents, which comprise some of the largest PI claims in this country.
Commercial: this team provides full legal support on healthcare M&A, NHS LIFT, PFI, joint venture and major procurement projects. The firm has also developed a strong portfolio of work in relation to TCS (Transforming Community Services); it has been involved in developing employment models for NHS community services in the light of Government policy to separate the commissioning and provision of NHS services and also supported many social enterprises as part of the TCS initiative. The work is carried out in multi-disciplinary teams with members of the property and employment departments. Completed deals include the development of new hospitals, diagnostic and treatment centres, polyclinics, healthcare IT systems, and corporate acquisitions and joint ventures.
Dispute resolution: this team specialises in the resolution of commercial and property disputes, as well as working for healthcare regulatory bodies and a growing number of non-healthcare regulators. In the healthcare fraud arena, the team continues to recover substantial sums of money lost through fraud in the NHS and has been retained by the NHS Counter Fraud Services as the appointed provider of fraud response services to all NHS bodies.
Employment: this team provides employment law advice, drafting of policies, procedures and contracts, and representation in the Employment Tribunal and higher courts. It also runs an HR advisory service that provides employee relations advice to NHS trusts and other employers.
Property: this team carries out major property development and construction work, including addressing both the establishment of new clinical facilities, often as part of an area regeneration scheme, and disposal of redundant sites. As part of this work the lawyers advise extensively on town and country planning and are expert in documenting s106 and other planning agreements. The team also carries out a full range of estate portfolio management work.
Breakdown of work %
Clinical law 26
Commercial 16
Employment 16
Dispute resolution 26
Property 16
Number of UK partners 40
Number of other UK fee-earners 151
Above material supplied by Capsticks.