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Permalink Reply by Donald Smith on September 9, 2016 at 13:37

Legal Update 26.07.2016

Your support has led to another round of astonishing, record-breaking judicial review fundraising. This clearly demonstrates the strength of feeling from NHS Staff and public.

Thanks to your donations, the immediate financial restrictions in taking the competition law challenge forward were lifted and we had the freedom to give this option full consideration. We want to have the best possible chance of winning our judicial review.

 

Judicial Review

We have been considering whether to proceed with:

• Our original public law grounds OR

• Our original grounds plus extended grounds including competition law

After extensive discussion with our legal experts and with input from interested parties, we have decided we will proceed with our original public law grounds. We will ‘stay’ the competition law challenge, with liberty to restore: this means it is on hold for now.

We feel this respects the aims and objectives set out when beginning this action, as well as respecting the trust you have placed in us.

 

Competition Law Arguments

It is important to know that existing government legislation recognises every Trust as an individual employer and we would argue that the only lawful way in which they can all be asked to use the same contract is with the agreement of the employees or their representative unions. This would mean that in the NHS, the only lawful national contract is a mutually agreed one.

We met with our solicitor Saimo Chahal QC (Hon) and two expert QCs again this week, to take our decision regarding this challenge. We have taken it very seriously and with appropriate counsel from all experts and interested parties.

Our legal proceedings have exposed the workings of HEE and market forces that bind us to our employers, which warrant interrogation. Competition law issues when considered in the context of the NHS are hugely complex, legally and politically. In order to confidently proceed with any competition law challenge, any claimants would need full support from the British Medical Association. We hope that in future, we can revisit this argument in collaboration with the BMA. The issue should be addressed with appropriate resources and strategic foresight.

 

Funding

We have raised all of the funds asked of us by the Department of Health’s legal team for security and our own for legal expenses. Any funds remaining in our client account that are not already allocated for these expenses will be held for us as a contingency, should they be required for an Appeal.

Any excess funds will be redirected to other cases via CrowdJustice, in accordance with their terms & conditions. Any donations of over £1000 will be refunded. We are working with CrowdJustice to develop a new mechanism to enable us to decide which pro-NHS cases to support in future.

 

Court Date

Confirmation of the court date is pending. We expect this to be a 2-day hearing in mid-September. We will announce this as soon as we know.

 

The Health Secretary has tried everything to avoid this case being heard, and we will do everything we can to hold him to account for his actions.

 

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Permalink Reply by Donald Smith on September 9, 2016 at 13:41

Judicial Review Confirmation of Attendance

Justice for Health Vs Secretary of State for Health (Jeremy Hunt)

19 & 20 September 2016

Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London

Thanks for filling out our preliminary numbers form. We have now secured the largest court available.
We now need a list of confirmed, named attendees.
If you have secured time off work and can confirm your attendance at the hearing please complete this form below.
Due to high demand spaces, are limited to one per person.

* Required

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