Our health & social care work: employment contract and staff handbook reviews

Here at Wilkin Chapman, we act for GP practices across the country as well as private and third-sector organisations operating across the health and social care sector.

Our team provides practical and focused legal advice on employment law, HR, and compliance as well as regulatory, corporate and commercial and commercial property law.

Our employment team are experts in all things employment and HR. In addition to providing practical advice and assistance on dealing with day-to-day HR issues, our team also regularly assist organisations with conducting thorough reviews of their policies, procedures and contracts of employment to ensure that they are both legally compliant and protect the organisation.

Our team has recently conducted a review of a care sector organisation’s documentation. They were able to assist by amending and updating documentation to ensure compliance with current legislation. A key part of this review was ensuring that the template employment contract included all particulars now required following reform to the law implemented in 2020 (further to the Good Work Plan previously published by the Government in 2018). This included adding provisions dealing with any employment benefits, training requirements and any entitlement to paid leave.

We also reviewed clauses designed to protect the organisation, such as any post-termination restrictions along with provisions giving the right for the organisation to recoup training costs in the event that an employee leaves the business soon after a period of training has been paid for.

We regularly undertake reviews of policies and procedures contained in staff handbooks, feeding back to clients on any policies and procedures that could be included, or amended.

As regulatory considerations are also important in the health and social care sector, it is important to ensure this is considered as part of any review. Our regulatory team, led by Jonathan Goolden, provides expertise in this area. The team are also able to work with our employment team to provide organisations with valuable guidance and assistance in ensuring all required documents are in place from a data protection perspective.