The Legal 500

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, NHSLA, Circle Healthcare, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Solicitors Regulation Authority, Nuffield Healthcare, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust and the National Patient Safety Agency. 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 advising Circle Healthcare on the first statutory franchise agreement of an NHS hospital and the £219m St Helier Redevelopment for Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals National Health Service Trust. Capsticks also advised on the reversal of the original decision quashing the consultation made in judicial review proceedings brought by the Royal Brompton and Harefield Foundation Trust (RBHFT) in the first ever legal challenge brought by one NHS body against another.

Clients in the private and voluntary sectors include Nuffield Health, Ramsay Healthcare, 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 high-profile cases 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. Capsticks’ portfolio of completed and ongoing healthcare work includes large healthcare capital projects such as PFI, and NHS LIFT schemes which have given way to services based projects. Recent deals include several managed equipment projects, managed pathology schemes, other facilities management outsourcings, over 40 Transforming Community Services projects and the country’s first management franchise of an NHS hospital. The firm has also carried out a number of major urban redevelopment schemes for mixed uses, including medipark, retail and residential uses.

Change at organisational level has led to the firm’s involvement in many healthcare M&A transactions, both within the NHS and the private sector. Likewise, Capsticks is at the forefront of the development of alternative models and forms of service delivery, acting on health and social care social enterprise establishments.

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 on the NHS and has been retained by the NHS Protect 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 41

Number of other UK fee-earners 150