Lynne Abbess

Property; Real Estate

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.