Anne Crofts

Anne specialises in commercial law.

She has 30 years’ experience advising on commercial issues relevant to the health sector. Anne has been involved in all the major NHS reorganisations since 1990 and advised on some of the most innovative joint venture and collaborative arrangements, as well as partnerships between NHS and independent providers and across public sector boundaries including health and social care.

Anne has extensive expertise in the powers of NHS bodies to collaborate and share resources and has a thorough understanding of the policy and legislative frameworks that underpin the NHS. In particular, she provides advice on procurement strategy, ensuring compliance with EU and domestic legislation governing tendering and competition in the NHS, as well as internal governance requirements. Anne advises regularly on compliance confidentiality obligations relating to the transfer, sharing and use of patient data.

Relevant experience includes advising:

• Multiple NHS organisations on the governance and legislative frameworks for developing New Models of Care and implementing the NHS Long Term Plan including detailed governance structures for data sharing.
• NHS Trusts and NHS Foundation Trusts on the options for setting up in-house subsidiary models for the delivery of income generating activities including hospital and community pharmacy services, managed healthcare facilities and FM services across multiple sites and organisations.
• Foundation Trusts on the establishment of joint ventures to develop surplus land for development of housing financed by the private sector.
• STP/ICS members on the establishment and contracting structure for a number of pathology network collaborations either for “end to end” services or collaborative procurement of pathology managed equipment services and Laboratory Information Systems (LIMS).
• Advising on the establishment of collaborations between NHS organisations for shared back office and support services reflecting the objectives of the Carter Report, including procurement, IT, HR, estates and facilities management functions.
• Advising both Local Authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups on the Better Care Fund and the governance and operation of pooled budgets and associated "s75" agreements.

In addition, Anne holds the ISEB certificate in data protection and contributes regularly to Thought Leadership initiatives on issues relevant to the NHS, such as the NHS Estates Report.