Social Care

The ever increasing need for long term social care for older people and specialist care for adults and children, creates an environment of opportunity for service providers, but with this opportunity also comes risk – it’s a fast moving and heavily regulated sector which requires dedicated and experienced legal advice.

Our multi-disciplinary team of experts in this sector are adept at working with providers, to help them maximise the positive impact they can have on the people they support, whilst also protecting and growing their operational, commercial and reputational success.

We are trusted advisors for a number of the UK’s largest social care entities and work collaboratively with a broad range of public and independent sector clients including private providers, charities, housing associations, supported living providers, developers and investors to support the long term, sustainable growth of their services.

We support clients from inception, guiding them through acquisition or development, recruitment and appointment of statutory positions, CQC registration and inspection, regulatory compliance and challenge where needed (including factual accuracy and rating review processes) through to enforcement and formal legal proceedings. We also provide support to providers and investors undertaking organisational change and transactional projects to develop, or dispose of, their operations via our very strong commercial, corporate and real estate capability.

Recent experience includes:

• Advising Elysium Healthcare on a number of acquisitions including the acquisition of London Care Partnership
• Advising Triplepoint on a portfolio acquisition of supported housing properties
• Supporting the senior management teams of a number of large health and social care providers to prepare for and respond to the CQC well led inspection process, including interview preparation, board briefings and post inspection challenge to the draft CQC inspection report
• Representing a large number of social care providers at Coroner’s Inquests, including high profile and complex article 2 and jury cases.
• Advising independent providers on health and safety requirements and compliance with Government guidance arising during the Covid-19 pandemic
• Handling complex civil claims arising across the health and social care sector, including issues such as assault by service users, workplace stress and bullying and harassment.