Legal Advice for Healthcare Organisations

Brachers’ Commercial Property team frequently advises primary care providers on their commercial property needs, handling a range of matters from new developments, to leases and disposals.

We have strong expertise in dealing with co-located primary care schemes – such as those housing pharmacies, hospitals, and GP practices at a single destination. We are proud to have recently acted for a GP practice that wished to take up a lease, to establish their practice on a significant new co-located primary care development. The land has a complex ownership structure, with the freehold held by an NHS Hospital Trust and the headlease owned by the developer.

This required careful handling by our team. However, we successfully navigated any complexities to help our client obtain their sub demise. This achievement will not only benefit our client but also the wider community, through supporting the NHS goal of delivering seamless care between GP and hospital medicine.

Brachers’ multidisciplinary Healthcare team provided guidance to a GP practice that co-located with another surgery without putting appropriate documentation in place in relation to the premises.

The individual doctors collectively owned the property’s freehold as trustees, yet the existing trust documents were insufficient. With the assistance of Brachers’ expert trust lawyers, we regularised the trust agreement and established separate lease arrangements for each practice.

This meticulous documentation was crucial for both practices to receive rent reimbursement and was integral to the scheme’s financial viability.

Over the past few years, Primary Care Networks (PCNs) have become essential for delivering integrated primary care services to local communities.

These networks bring together groups of GP practices under one umbrella, streamlining services for patients. Additionally, they allow doctors who might otherwise leave practice to continue working, while ensuring continuity of patient care within a new organisational structure.

At Brachers, our multi-disciplinary Healthcare team advises Primary Care Networks on a range of matters, including acquisitions, business structuring, and property transactions. Recently, we assisted a PCN with practice mergers and acquisitions, lease agreements, and the transfer of NHS contracts. These mergers have been crucial in addressing the resource crisis in primary care, especially in light the challenges faced by senior GPs in recruiting new doctors to join partnerships.