Hempsons

Adam Smith

Adam joined Hempsons in January 2020 as part of our merger with Eastwoods, having originally trained at Hempsons. Adam was one of the three founding solicitors at Eastwoods and became a partner in 2008.  Adam’s defence practice covers regulatory and disciplinary (GMC/MPTS, GDC, HCPC and others), crime (particularly sexual assault and gross negligence manslaughter) and inquests, as well as representation of police officers in criminal (IOPC) and gross misconduct proceedings. Adam sits part time as an Assistant Coroner in both Milton Keynes and Inner North London.

Adrian Parker

Adrian leads the firm’s northern corporate commercial department and heads up Hempsons’ national procurement law team, which has continued to expand in the last year. Adrian has over 20 years experience providing advice to public bodies, companies, charities and social enterprises engaged in the health sector on commercial transactions, non contentious and contentious procurement issues, including major projects. He also advises on corporate governance within the health service. His key areas of work in recent years have included advising upon the redesign of the delivery of commissioning support services to NHS Commissioners, and the development and access of support and population health management expertise to Accountable Care Systems (ACS) and Accountable Care Organisations (ACO) He is also engaged on substantive multi million procurement and outsourcing projects of key services for the health service. He also defends an increasing number of legal challenges against public bodies and institutes challenges for social enterprises and companies against defective processes.

Adrienne D"Arcy

Adrienne is one of the firm’s nominated partners for NHS Resolution clinical negligence work, leading a team of senior and experienced fee earners. As well as being responsible for the supervision and training of the team, Adrienne handles all types of clinical negligence claims, particularly sensitive cases and fatal accident claims. Adrienne is responsible for a number of NHS trusts in Yorkshire and represents doctors and nurses at inquests. She also has experience of advising doctors in relation to professional disciplinary investigations by the GMC and NHS inquiries.

Andrew Daly

Andrew specialises in procurement law, acting for both contracting authorities and bidders. He utilises the knowledge gained from acting for clients on both sides of the fence, to provide pragmatic advice on running both defensible procurement processes, and also to challenge defective processes for bidders. When acting for contracting authorities this work involves ensuring procurement processes are robust and defensible, and defending challenges brought by bidders. Andrew led on the successful and timely delivery of one of the first innovation partnership procedures under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and regularly advises on designing and structuring processes, drafting procurement documentation and defending procurement law challenges. He also acted for the commissioner in defending the first NHS v NHS procurement challenge to reach the courts. When acting for bidders, Andrew seeks to challenge processes, looking at areas where the bidder has been discriminated against. He has successfully overturned a number of procurement processes on behalf of bidders. Andrew recently advised Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust & Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in successfully challenging Lancashire County Council in relation to the Council’s 0 – 19 services procurement – see Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust & Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v Lancashire County Council [2018] EWHC 1589 (TCC) Andrew is currently working on a number of large projects, including procurements of managed pathology services; advising on the implications of the Light Touch Regime, in particular within the context of integrated care systems and out of hospital services; establishing wholly owned NHS subsidiary companies; projects to implement the recommendations of the Carter Review; as well as the Global Digital Exemplar scheme. He is also dealing with a number of procurement challenges for both commissioners and bidders. Andrew regularly provides training on procurement law duties and writes articles for publications dealing with procurement. He is a regular speaker at HCSA events, in particular the HCSA Annual Conference.

Andrew Davidson

Andrew supports employers in the health, social care and private sector on employment law issues in his role as head of Hempsons national employment team. Andrew has a national reputation for his work in handling concerns about doctors (under the MHPS framework), dealing with discrimination issues, employment tribunal claims and TUPE in particular and he has considerable expertise across healthcare employment law. He regularly provides training for clients on a wide range of employment law and HR issues and is a regular speaker at national conferences.

Anne Ball

Medical negligence claims – Anne is a partner who is a specialist in defending medical negligence claims on behalf of NHS Trusts and individual doctors. Anne is an NHSLA nominated partner. Regulatory work – Anne provides advice and representation to doctors facing investigations by the General Medical Council. She is head of Hempson's crime team and undertakes the defence of serious criminal allegations, including gross negligence manslaughter, corporate manslaughter and fraud. Inquests – Anne regularly provides advice and representation to NHS organisations and individual doctors at inquests.

Bertie Leigh

Consultant; specialises in medical negligence, other professional negligence, hospital litigation, institutions specifically concerned with obstetrics, anaesthetics and paediatrics; special interest in medical ethics, on which he writes articles and lectures.

Bryn Morgan

During his career Bryn has represented a diverse range of clients, ranging from listed corporations, NHS trusts, professional bodies and charities, livery companies and housing associations to smaller businesses, healthcare professionals and private individuals, in many different real estate transactions. Bryn therefore offers his clients a service which utilises these experiences to provide an efficient and pragmatic approach to their property needs. Bryn has advised on the real estate aspects of over 30 large scale projects including service reorganisations, mergers and acquisitions, transforming community services and other service spin outs and the 2013 NHS transition flowing from the national dissolution of primary care trusts. Bryn also deals with all legal aspects of estate management for a number of NHS trusts, livery companies, housing associations and third sector bodies. In addition, Bryn advises healthcare professionals in connection with their partnership arrangements both in terms of their business needs and to secure their property investments. This combined approach ensures the key aspects of entering into a partnership are dealt with comprehensively at the outset and can be managed effectively during the life of the partnership. Bryn’s specialisms include acting for GPs in the development of new surgery premises via 3rd Party Developer (3PD) schemes. He also regularly advises GPs and other NHS bodies in connection with LIFT schemes.

Chris Alderson

Chris specialises in healthcare law.  He undertakes defendant clinical negligence litigation, including claims of utmost severity on behalf of NHS clients and represents such clients at inquests, including Article 2 and jury inquests.  Chris is also an expert in the field of information governance, and regularly advises NHS and other healthcare providers, third sector entities and tech startups in the field. He also provides advice on transactional work involving a change in usage of personal data. Recent work in this area has included advising an NHS body in relation to the IG issues in a major NHS Test Bed project, and preparing clients for GDPR implementation. Chris’s advice has covered matters relating to patient information and confidentiality, including data security breaches and the associated monetary penalties, and commercially sensitive information, in particular in relation to contentious procurement issues. Chris also advises on public interest disclosures of information and has advised recently on disclosures of information with a national high profile, including those concerning safeguarding children. Chris also lectures and publishes articles on wider issues of information governance with a particular emphasis on the health sector.

Chris Morris

Chris became the firm’s Senior Partner in January 2018. He first qualified as a dental surgeon, and practised dentistry in the UK and overseas for ten years before training as a solicitor. Chris became a partner at Hempsons in 1996 specialising in all aspects of dental and regulatory law and heads Hempsons’ National Dental Team and the firm’s Regulatory and Crime Team. Chris has long been recognised as a leader and Band 1 practitioner in the field of Professional Discipline by the Legal 500 and Chambers directories. Chris has been President of the Dental Law & Ethics Forum since 2001, and was an elected member of the ARDL committee from 2015-2018. Main areas of practice include defending healthcare practitioners at the GDC, GMC, GOC and HPC; Defendant clinical negligence litigation for dentists, doctors and other healthcare professionals; NHS regulatory work (e.g. Performers List hearings and FHSAA appeals; Specialist List applications and appeal; Acting in disputes between practitioners; and all types of GDC and GMC registration matters.

Crispin Pettifer

Crispin is a partner in Hempsons’ corporate–commercial team and head of projects and construction. He supports organisations to deliver capital projects and maintain and manage their estates and facilities.  Recent projects include Strategic Estates Partnerships (SEPs), multi-story car parks, retail developments in hospital sites, managed services agreements for clinical and non-clinical facilities and equipment.

Deborah Ramshaw

Deborah is a nationally recognised procurement law expert, she joined Hempsons in 2016 after 17 years at Bond Dickinson LLP and prior to that she was a solicitor in local government. Deborah has expertise in a wide range of sectors including: health, local government, central government, energy, transport (including rail), education and registered providers. Deborah also advises private sector providers across a range of procurement law matters including tendering strategies and advice on losing tenders. Deborah has represented a number of co-defendants in a high value procurement challenge and advises on a number of complex procurements. Deborah advises on innovation in procurement, including the use of the Innovation Partnership procedure. Deborah has recently advised a large local authority purchasing organisation on the procurement and contracts for an innovative neutral vendor framework.  Deborah authors various notes on procurement law for Westlaw Insight and Lexis PSL as well as providing training to clients and bodies such as CIPS.

Elizabeth Thomas

Elizabeth is in the main a litigator with broad experience of advising NHS trusts, NHS Resolution and MDOs on complex and high value clinical negligence matters. Elizabeth is the firm lead for assisting Trusts and NHS Resolution in the Early Notification Scheme initiative and had a key role in setting up the firm’s Covid-19 portal in response to the recent pandemic.Aside from litigation, Elizabeth works with individual healthcare professionals, students and Royal Colleges in regulatory and advisory matters. While being part of the London office, Elizabeth has worked remotely for the past six years gaining experience that has been called upon in the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. She is based in the Channel Islands. Elizabeth has an academic background in healthcare ethics having studied it at Yale University, during her Masters degree at Manchester University and during her undergraduate degree at Cambridge University. She is an active member of Guernsey’s Princess Elizabeth Hospital Ethics Committee as well as being a Trustee of the UK Clinical Ethics Network. Elizabeth’s undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences (Pembroke College) Cambridge enables her to get to grips with the science of healthcare claims and to relate to the professionals she advises and supports.Elizabeth is married to a Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist and has two sons.

Faisal Dhalla

Faisal specialises in corporate and commercial law and advises a wide range of private, public and third sector organisations on mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and collaborations, commercial contracts and banking and finance law. Faisal’s main industry focus is the health and social care sector. Within that sector, he specialises in the sale and purchase of health and social care businesses, in particular, dental practices and care homes. Faisal acts for private equity and venture capital backed businesses, practitioners (dentists and GPs), NHS bodies, social enterprises and charities and a variety of private limited companies. Faisal provides specialist advice to dentists and dental corporates on the sale and purchase of dental practices, practice incorporations, issues involving NHS dental contracts and issues relating to associate agreements. Faisal is also highly experienced in advising shareholders on shareholder exits, in particular, exits involving sales to large corporate groups. Faisal prides himself on being a “deal doer” who finds innovative solutions to tricky situations so that clients can achieve their business ambitions in a timely, cost effective and commercial manner.

Fiona Wilson

As the head of the private client department, Fiona’s work covers a diverse range of legal services catering for the needs of individual private clients and their families on a personal level. This typically includes all advice relating to wills and estate tax planning, including the provision of sensitive and effective guidance with regard to the administration of estates. Fiona also provides assistance where a family dispute has arisen, and practical advice in connection with the future management of financial affairs, which includes the preparation of property, affairs and personal welfare lasting powers of attorney. Another important area of her work, as part of the firm’s third sector team, is to give advice in the legacy field. Fiona has acted for a number of years for a large number of national charities including NHS trusts. Fiona takes a deep personal interest in all of her clients and considers herself fortunate to have gained many by frequent referrals from existing clients and other professional connections.

Gautam Chawla

Gautam is a partner who specialises in healthcare litigation and, in particular, clinical negligence claims. He trained and qualified at a leading clinical negligence firm and has been dealing exclusively with clinical negligence claims since 2006. Gautam has acted in a wide variety of cases including dental, gynaecological, infection, neurosurgical, obstetric, ophthalmic, oncological, orthopaedic and spinal injury claims. At Hempsons Gautam has the benefit of working closely with colleagues who are recognised as leaders in the field of healthcare litigation, some of whom have medical as well legal backgrounds.

Graham Lea

Graham has considerable experience of all types of development work acting for both developers of and finance providers to shopping centres and other retail schemes, warehouse schemes, office developments such as Canary Wharf, and more recently leisure and health care developments. He has negotiated development agreements, funding agreements, building contracts, professional warranties and agreements for lease with occupational tenants.

Hannah Stephenson

Harjit Talwar

Harjit trained with a leading claimant clinical negligence firm in Manchester prior to completing the end of her training and qualifying with a leading defendant clinical negligence firm in 1999. She specialises in healthcare litigation and now focuses on defending clinical negligence claims against the NHS. In the past, Harjit acted for the General Dental Council in professional misconduct cases and also spent some time overseas acting as sole in house counsel for the Singapore Medical Council. Since joining Hempsons in January 2016, she has been dealing exclusively with clinical negligence claims. Harjit has acted in a wide variety of cases including brain injury, obstetrics/birth injury, spinal injury, gynaecology, dental, neurosurgical and orthopaedic. She is developing a keen interest in cauda equina cases.

Helen Claridge

  Helen joined Hempsons in 2010 and worked first in the London office before moving home to Manchester in 2016. Much of Helen’s caseload involves mental health and mental capacity issues. She advised in relation to the Mental Health (Approval Functions) Bill and regularly acts on behalf of healthcare providers in complex applications to the Court of Protection concerning deprivation of liberty and best interests. Helen acted for the successful NHS Trust and CCG in an NHS Trust v Y [2018] UKSC 46 in which the Supreme Court considered whether an application to the Court of Protection is mandatory in every case of withdrawal of clinically assisted nutrition and hydration from a patient in a prolonged disorder of consciousness. Helen works across a wide range of health and social care issues in different jurisdictions including the Coroner’s Court, the Family Division and the First Tier Tribunal (health and social care). Helen regularly advises organisations in relation to CQC registration and challenge, clinical governance and funding disputes. Helen has an interest in judicial review and was part of the team which successfully challenged the public consultation in relation to paediatric cardiac surgery nationwide. Before joining Hempsons, Helen worked in the legal department of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust. Helen has continued her interest in child law and regularly advises on issues such as wardship, consent, withdrawal of care and child protection.

Helen Freeman

Helen has specialised in clinical negligence claims since 1998. Her practice includes high value birth injury, obstetric and paediatric claims as well as head and spinal injury claims. Helen joined Hempsons in 2002 with a background in claimant clinical negligence. In 2005, she obtained a Masters degree in healthcare law & ethics. Helen became a partner in 2011 and was a NHS Resolution Nominated Partner for 2 ½ years. She leads a team of experienced litigators.

Hilary King

Hilary enjoys advising on a wide range of issues affecting the NHS. One of the areas Hilary covers is contractual disputes. This may be a dispute between NHS England and a GP practice about some aspect of the GMS/PMS contract or a  dispute between a trust and one of its supplier of goods or services. Recently, for example, she has been dealing with a number of disputes about the terms on which locums have supplied to the NHS and problems with a company which archives records and wouldn’t release them, a cleaning company whose services were not up to standard and a supplier of a computer system. Hilary also deals with disputes which arise from time to time within GP partnerships. Hilary particularly enjoys advising on the legislation which either governs or affects the NHS. This includes a diverse range of topics such as how to apply the rules about overseas visitor charges, data protection and freedom of information, the supply of medicines and, recently, a particular interest of hers, the Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme. Linked to this is Hilary’s experience in drafting statutory regulations for regulatory bodies on such issues as registration, renewal of registration, continuing education requirements and fees. Hilary also covers performance issues (particularly relating to GPs) and fitness to practice cases of which she has many years experience. This extends to advising membership organisations about problems they may encounter regarding the suitability of a particular individual to continue in membership.

Ian Hempseed

Ian is a charity and corporate lawyer who has a wide range of experience in the field of commercial, constitutional and governance law. He heads up the Charities and Social Enterprise team at Hempsons – and our Practitioner team. His broad expertise in advising charities, social enterprises and other not for profit organisations enables us to provide pragmatic and proactive advice to the sector as a whole. He also works closely with organisations, public sector staff and entrepreneurs in developing appropriate legal structures for social enterprises. GPs, private consultants and other health professionals call upon Ian’s help to create appropriate corporate vehicles, particularly for consortium working. Ian is regularly invited by external organisations to run workshops and training sessions on a wide range of topics affecting charities and social enterprises. Ian Hempseed is also a Mutuals Ambassador for the Mutuals Programme run by the Cabinet Office. One of the aims of the Mutuals Programme is to drive the creation of new public service mutuals across public service. Ian is a trustee of Power to Change.

James Down

James is an expert in inquests and coronial law. He is an experienced advocate who regularly represents the interests of NHS Trusts and individual practitioners in complicated and high profile inquests, including deaths of patients detained under the Mental Health Act and hospital deaths involving complex medical issues. He frequently appears at Article 2 and jury inquests involving multiple agencies. James is also the firm’s lead contact for health & safety matters. He represents organisations and individuals facing HSE investigations and prosecution. He also has significant corporate support experience and advices NHS trusts on mergers and acquisitions, including conducting due diligence on the Trust’s services.

Jane Donnison

Jane heads up our northern real estate team. She principally advises health and social care and third sector (public and private) clients on all aspects of property law. The depth of her knowledge and experience of these sectors shows in the commercial and pragmatic approach to her advice for which she is highly regarded by clients and other professionals.

Jennie Chapman

John Holmes

John’s team specialises in providing advice on patient-related issues to a range of healthcare providers. Many problems he deals with relate to mental health, and this can range from helping trusts with issues about detention, across to inquests and related clinical claims. Often advice is needed quickly, and the strength of John’s team is that they understand client’s needs to know their position straight away when problems come to light. They also have the back up of a national advisory team, and that is key when they are so often dealing with changing legislation. The DOLs procedures and the recent Rabone Supreme Court decision are good examples where the team has been at the forefront of providing seminars and other learning opportunities. Inquests and related clinical governance issues are also important, and other areas like information governance are also a major part of what John does. In terms of well-known cases John was involved in the Bournewood and Clunis cases, and in a number of group actions such as Ledward and RAGE. Over recent years a lot of time has been spent working on homicide inquiries and other investigations for trusts with a number of these cases being reported extensively in the media. John also provides clients and others with training, and for a number of years he chaired the Butterworths/ Lexis Nexis national healthcare law conference, and have spoken at their Adult Safeguarding Conference on mental health issues.

John Sharples

John joined Hempsons in 1998 after spending six years as a barrister in private practice, managing a general common law practice with an emphasis on commercial contract disputes. He offers a specialist advocacy service and advice in connection with a wide range of healthcare related issues. John has extensive experience representing clients at inquests, including deaths in custody, deaths in circumstances of detention under the Mental Health Act, hospital deaths involving complex medical issues, particularly the deaths of infants, and deaths giving rise to the possibility of prosecution under health and safety legislation. He also has wide experience of inquests involving multiple parties and fully inquiry under Art 2 HRA. John’s clinical negligence experience includes advising on liability and quantum and representing hospital trusts at interlocutory hearings, at JSM, at formal mediation, and at trial. He has defended doctors at GMC fitness to practice hearings and undertaken prosecutions for NMC and GSCC. John represents NHS England in appeals involving the removal of practitioners from the Performers’ List, and he represented a medical consultant as an intervenor in High Court proceedings. John’s regulatory experience includes representation of hospital trusts in relation to threatened and effective prosecutions under health and safety legislation, fire regulations and prosecutions brought by the Environment Agency. He also acts as an advocate in effective prosecutions under Care Standards legislation. John advises and represents hospital trusts and private sector clients in commercial contract disputes.

Jonathan Pearce

Jon advises a wide range of clients predominantly operating in the health and social care and charity sectors on all aspects of employment law. He has particular expertise in advising on strategic personnel issues such as senior executive appointments and departures and complex change management situations, including large-scale restructurings and redundancies, outsourcings and TUPE transfers. Jon has considerable experience advising on high-value, complex discrimination and whistleblowing issues and litigation in the employment tribunal and higher courts. Jon is the go-to person in our London office for NHS Trusts who need support running and managing MHPS investigations/processes. Jon frequently provides bespoke training packages for clients both at the HR and Board level and speaks at external employment law events.

Justin Cumberlege

Justin joined Hempsons as a partner in April 2019. He specialises in providing legal advice to the primary care healthcare sector, and has over 25 years’ experience. Justin’s healthcare and public sector focus encompasses advice on governance and commercial issues for the sector as well as advising consultants forming LLPs and companies and charitable organisations. He has in-depth expertise in mergers of GP practices, forming GP federations and primary care organisations, and looks forward to applying this expertise to help primary care networks. Justin’s recent work includes joint venture agreements, sharing of staff between practices, and contracts to deliver services at scale in one of the pilot Integrated Care Systems. Justin will be working closely with the other members of the Hempsons primary care team across all four of our offices to continue to develop the services we provide for GPs and other healthcare practitioners.

Katherine Sheldrick

Katherine specialises in advising clients in relation to regulation and clinical negligence, and is Head of our Crime Department. She advises and represent clients in the public, private and third sectors. Katherine currently act for clients in the criminal and civil courts, before various healthcare regulatory bodies and on appeal to the Administrative Court and Court of Appeal.

Kathleen Wilson

Since 1992 Kathleen has specialised in defending clinical negligence cases on behalf of the NHS. She has been responsible for training and supervision within Teams since 1996. She was one of the original Nominated Partners appointed by NHS Resolution and has worked in that capacity both for over well over 20 years. She has been at the cutting edge of developments throughout this time being involved in the first NHS funded structured settlements in the 1990s through to modern day PPOs.   Kathleen principally handles cases of maximum severity and complexity including those where babies have acquired cerebral palsy due to their mother allegedly receiving negligent obstetric care. She has worked on many cases where multi million pound or Periodical Payment Orders have been awarded. Kathleen has handled a number of very sensitive cases e.g. involving child protection issues and sexual assault. She also deals with complex cases for example involving considering / advise re the extent of duty of care, non-delegable duty and the chain of causation/ intervening acts.  She has also advised in regard to consent and confidentiality, Serious Untoward Incidents, homicide inquiries, child protection and complex inquests. Kathleen is client care partner and principal point of contact for various Trusts which responsibility includes ensuring that clients receive the highest quality service that Hempsons can provide. Kathleen leads on business development within the Department including organising training and speaking at seminars for NHS Managers and those involved with patient care. She takes the lead on Patient Safety Forum with events such as Mock Mediations, A Practical Guide to Consent to Treatment and Inquests.

Kirsten Blohm

Partner

Lynne Abbess

Lynne Abbess has over 35 years’ experience and a national reputation as a leading expert providing advice to professionals practising in partnership. She provides advice not only limited to partnership law but also concerning the business environment within which a practice operates. Lynne is both a commercial lawyer and a real estate lawyer which enables her to offer “joined up” advice relating to the functioning of the business as a whole, to include the essential (and very specialised) advice which governs surgery premises. This is critical within the healthcare sector as without the right to access the specialist premises required to provide the contracted services, quite simply, there is no ability for a doctor to practice. Not only is the premises’ requirement bespoke (unlike an office block – therefore imposing unique requirements) but the funding requirements are such that they result in unique drafting of partnership deeds/declarations of trust in order to cater for the requirements imposed by the NHS Regulations. In addition, Lynne advises on other areas which impact on the day to day running of a practice and any challenges faced, working closely with other teams on issues such as NHS Contract Law and Discrimination. Lynne’s focus during the past year has continued to be on: increasingly large/significant mergers of practices; and resolving partnership disputes – each case involving complex restructuring to avoid prejudicing the NHS Contract which is key to every practice’s survival. During the course of this year she has also: advised groups of NHS Consultants in setting up LLPs to deal with their private practices; and participated in a number of Mediations, resulting in successful settlements. She is a frequent writer of columns for the trade press and delivers lectures around the country. She is also an Accredited CEDR Mediator. Lynne is the sole legal representative on Lloyds Bank Healthcare Forum and is also the Joint Chair of the Primary Care Premises Forum, through which she has continued to participate in high level discussions with a variety of organisations concerned with the healthcare sector, including the BMA, the Nuffield, NHS Property Services and NHS England.

Margaret Taylor

Margaret qualified in 1990 having joined Hempsons in 1988 as a trainee. She became a partner in 1996. Margaret specialises in clinical negligence and the law relating to healthcare.

Martin Cheyne

The majority of Martin’s clients are health or social care organisations and he acts in the full range of claims before employment tribunals. Martin frequently defends factually complex and also legally novel claims, particularly in relation to disability, sex and sexual orientation discrimination and whistle-blowing allegations. His advice practise includes executive and senior manager terminations, discrimination issues, TUPE, reorganisations, complex disciplinary matters and concerns with doctors (MHPS). Martin also provides bespoke training on employment topics ranging from TUPE and related procurement preparation, equal opportunities to disciplinary investigations and appeals.

Mary Menjou

Mary is a partner in the healthcare litigation team. Mary qualified as a solicitor in 1991 and initially worked in house at the NHS Resolution (previously the NHS Litigation Authority). She is an extremely experienced litigator and has been involved in many of the leading cases in clinical negligence at the highest level. She also managed a large team of clinical negligence lawyers in East Anglia for many years.Recent cases involve neurosurgery, rare genetic syndromes and fetal anomalies. She also has a special interest in obstetric cases and has delivered seminars for both the Royal College of Obstetricians and Royal College of Midwives.

Oliver Crich

Oliver is a partner in Hempsons’ corporate commercial team, a role that involves advising public and private sector clients on a variety of health and social care matters. He advises on high value and complex commercial contracts, transactions and projects. He is an expert in public procurement law, including in relation to procurement disputes. Oliver is known for his friendly, approachable demeanour and for providing clear, pragmatic, commercial advice. He cares about his clients’ interests and objectives and puts them first, delivering results in a straightforward and effective manner.

Patricia Roe

Patricia has more than 15 years experience in the field of healthcare law predominantly in relation to clinical negligence claims. She represents both NHS and private clients in clinical negligence claims instructed by the NHS Resolution, individual trusts and medical defence organisations. Patricia has a broad range of experience of cases in most fields of medicine including obstetric, orthopaedic and surgical matters. Patricia joined Hempsons in June 2008 with a background in claimant clinical negligence claims and with that experience she has the skills to identify what claimants are seeking to achieve in litigation in order to encourage early resolution of claims. Patricia has undertaken a long term secondment at a client trust assisting the legal department dealing with claims being made against the trust as well as inquests and providing general healthcare law advice.

Paul Spencer

Paul provides support and assistance to his clients; he aims to be part of their HR team. As head of the Manchester employment team he ensures that this is the approach taken by all. With 20 years’ experience of working for NHS clients, Paul can provide practical and pragmatic advice with a full understanding of context and objectives. Paul delivers clear, straightforward advice. This is the case whether it is an employment tribunal claim, a reorganisation, addressing misconduct, bullying or harassment, or simply a client phoning to double check facts.

Philippa Doyle

Philippa has practised almost exclusively in the health and social care sector for over 19 years. In respect of social care, Philippa has provided advice and support to varied providers ranging from care home groups challenging local authority fee setting processes to the successful resistance of a safeguarding and fraud investigation into alleged mis-use of client monies. She also led a successful challenge to the Care Quality Commission on behalf of an independent living social care provider to the conduct of an inspector and the quality of the report itself, which resulted in a re-inspection by the CQC and a re-grading from “inadequate” to “good” for the provider and regularly advises on challenges from threatened prosecutions by CQC, complaints and Factual Accuracy Challenges. She has provided extensive Registered Manager training to aide compliance with the Fundamental Standards Philippa has a unique insight into the workings of CQC as she also advises them from time to time on appeals against their decisions in other areas of the country. Philippa’s CQC work extends to the NHS and private health, social care and third sector clients the firm acts for, including challenges on behalf of GP practices, NHS Mental Health Trusts, Community Interest Companies, dentists, care homes, domiciliary care services and private hospitals. A further mix of Philippa’s health and social care work relates to Court of Protection and Deprivation of Liberty Challenges, particularly in the community sector where she regularly supports CCG’s. She advises extensively on continuing healthcare matters, most specifically for clinical commissioning groups and NHS England in relation to responsible commissioner disputes, extensive reviews of periods of unassessed care, including a number of current judicial reviews in this area and recent challenges by providers and provider groups to monitor regarding the setting of continuing healthcare rates payable to care homes. Philippa has provided training to independent funding request panels and supports CCG’s in decision making in respect of novel funding requests, including resisting threats of judicial review. Philippa also has an interest in data protection and freedom of information matters which continue to be hot topics particularly in respect of the private and NHS mix of healthcare services. She has provided training to front line staff in a large charity on data security. Philippa has previously specialised in advising primarily former PCTs and now NHS England in performers list and contractual matters impacting on the four contractor groups of GPs, dentists, opticians and pharmacists. Her extensive knowledge gained in this sector also enables her to offer candid and proactive advice to individual practitioners on the approach likely to be taken by NHS England to their particular situation to aide a realistic and swift conclusion to a situation. These skills will now also be transferred to supporting CCGs under co-commissioning. Philippa earned an MA in Healthcare Ethics from Leeds University in 2008 inspired by the inter-relationship between private and NHS health care.

Richard Nolan

Richard has been a partner in the commercial team and head of commercial dispute resolution nationally at Hempsons since 2008. Hempsons is a leading law firm for the health and social care, life sciences, charity and social enterprise sectors and helps clients overcome a constantly evolving list of challenges.  Richard’s practice comprises a broad mix of non contentious and contentious commercial law and dispute resolution. The public sector work undertaken in this area is often of high value, complex and attract public interest. He has c. 10 years experience of providing advice to public bodies, companies, charities and social enterprises engaged in the Health Sector on non contentious and contentious issues, including major projects.   Richard qualified as a solicitor at a leading banking and international law firm in the City in 1992 and has more than 25 years experience of commercial dispute resolution, including in-house experience on secondment at Royal Life Holdings and NatWest respectively.   On qualification he moved to Yorkshire to join a national law firm, and from 2001 onwards has been a partner at leading regional and national law firms.  Richard was accredited as a mediator with ADR Group in the early 1990s, and qualified as a CEDR accredited mediator in early 2017. He has been involved in 100+ commercial mediations, primarily as legal representative, on a broad range of disputes with values as high as £550,000,000. These have included structurally large and legally complex mediations acting for associations comprising 100+ claimant commercial provider organisations in dispute with public sector commissioners of health and social care services. 

Ross Clark

Head of GP Services

Sharon Cooney

Simeon Bower

Simeon specialises in clinical negligence claims for NHS Resolution as well as private individuals and their defence organisations. He has been acting on behalf of NHS organisations for more than 19 years and maintains a focus on complex brain and spinal injury claims. He became a partner in 2013 and heads a small team of healthcare litigators.

Simon Eastwood

Senior Consultant

Stephen Evans

Stephen’s work covers some very technical legal areas but the overall theme is ‘dispute resolution’. He always looks for pragmatic solutions, without compromising your position. Where appropriate, Stephen’s advice on the law, options and risks will bear in mind any long term ongoing therapeutic relationship and that the resolution of acute problems needs to support, not undermine that. In 2009 Stephen obtained his Master’s Degree in Mental Health Law. His final project brought together his mental health and capacity experience by considering the problems in developing the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. Please contact Stephen if you would like a copy.

Stephen Maratos

Stephen has worked in defendant clinical negligence since qualifying as a solicitor in 2005. He joined Hempsons in 2014 and deals with a broad spectrum of clinical negligence work, including complex higher value matters and surgical cases.

Surjit Dubb

Taiyba Waheed

Taiyaba specialises in the health sector, focusing on clinical negligence and claims involving serious injury, particularly those involving brain damage, spinal injury and birth injury. She advises on NHS regulatory matters and performance issues. Taiyaba has extensive experience of inquests and provides advice to trusts in connection with these proceedings. She acts for clients in the public and private sector. Taiyaba’s work covers NHS and private claims, advice and disciplinary matters. She has previously advised in relation IVF treatment and she holds an interest in ethics. Taiyaba has a voluntary interest in advising parents of children with special educational needs.

Tania Francis

Tania advises doctors, dentists and other healthcare professionals with all sorts of issues – GMC/GDC/GOC/GPhC/HCPC registration and regulatory issues, specialist registration/specialist lists, litigation, associate disputes, CQC registration, difficulties with NHS England and more. Tania is a qualified doctor and works in a team which also includes a qualified dentist, and they therefore offer a unique approach to our clients’ problems. The team regularly contributes to Independent Practitioner Today and Dentistry magazine, and offers training and seminars to our clients. Tania is also on the council of the Medico-Legal Society.