Contracts

The fundamental basis of your relationship with your commissioners is by way of contract – whether this is a local authority, a clinical commissioning group or a privately funded service user.

Public Commissioning Bodies

Public commissioning bodies of care will carry out contract monitoring visits of services to ensure providers are meeting the terms of their contracts. These visits may take place as a matter of course, or because they have been prompted by a safeguarding alert or a regulator visit.

Sometimes these visits are used to try and reduce fees or result in commissioners seeking to cancel the contract based on an alleged breach of contract. Sometimes they will try and remove service users.

Often the actions of the commissioner can influence those of the regulator, and vice-versa.

Privately Funded Services Users

These contracts usually address medium to long-term arrangements so the validity and enforceability of them is important when considering the business security of a care service.

Ensuring that your customers understand proposed terms and commit with informed knowledge is important. Failure to do so could render agreements unenforceable and could result in regulatory fines or claims for damages.

Ridouts can provide advice to providers on these contracts, whether it is a one-off agreement or management of contract arrangements on an ongoing basis.