Health sector legal services
Goldsmith Law's areas of legal expertise in the health sector include;
- Governance support
- Constitutional and regulatory advice
- Outsourcing
- Procurement processes and contracting
- Commerce Act advice
- DHB collaboration/liaison/amalgamation work
- PHO establishment and disestablishment
- PHO Agreement and B2B Agreement advisory and disputes work
- Fees review disputes
- General practice structuring, acquisitions, amalgamations
- Strategic and tactical guidance of litigation
- Fraud investigation management
Summarised health sector experience
- Main external legal adviser to:
- Southern District Health Board (and formerly Otago District Health Board and the Otago/Southland DHBs’ Southern Alliance) from 2005
- Southern Primary Health Organisation
- Aoraki Primary Health Organisation
- South Link Health Inc
- General Practice New Zealand (formerly IPA Council).
- For the Otago & Southland DHBs, successfully designed, implemented and defended (from competition law challenge, Auditor-General’s Office enquiries, ASMS, Laboratory Workers’ Union and internal political challenges) the model for the outsourcing to the private sector of hospital and community laboratory services (2005-6)
- Adviser on establishment of governance structures for the Southern Alliance 'virtual' regional entity before formal merger of Otago and Southland DHBs (2009)
- Advised on major ($18m) procurement fraud against Otago DHB, advised on the resulting regulatory and governance outfall, and on establishment of new procurement processes to guard against risks of similar activity (2006-2011).
- Adviser to the Otago/Southland pharmaceuticals working party (with brief to safeguard against Commerce Act risk) (2008 onwards).
- Advised General Practice representative organisations on the national negotiations with MoH/DHBNZ on establishment of the primary care capitation funding regime (2004).
- Advised (variously) GPNZ, South Link Health and Aoraki PHO on various competition law and contract law challenges to the legality and enforceability of the capitation funding regime and the DHB-PHO-GP contracting model (2006 - 2011)
- Wrote GPNZ’s guide to general practice on managing Fees Review Committee challenges to standard consultation fee setting (2008)
- Advised on the constitutional structure and establishment of Southern PHO and the transfer of all existing Otago and Southland PHOs’ assets and liabilities to it (2010)
- External (peer review) adviser to Southern Cross Primary Care Limited on the contract model and precedents for acquisition of equity interests in private practices (2011)
- Adviser to South Link Health on disputes over rural after-hours services and funding regime (2011-2012).
- Adviser to GPNZ on legal and contractual issues arising from time to time in PSAAP negotiations.
- Developed the standard ‘provider contract’ model for Southern Regional Health Authority on the establishment of the original ‘purchaser/provider’ split regime in mid 1990s. (The model remains in use today)
- Competition law and structuring advisor on various rural practice amalgamations.
Health sector referees
- Brian Rousseau, former CEO, Southern DHB (now CEO, Royal Adelaide Hospital)
- Errol Millar, former Chair, Southern DHB
- Richard Thomson, former Chair, Otago DHB
- Victor Klap, General Manager, Southern Cross Primary Care Limited & former CEO, IPA Council
- Dr Conway Powell, former Chair, Southern PHO & PSAAP negotiator
- Karen Foster, former CEO, Aoraki PHO
- Ian Macara, CEO, Southern PHO
- Prof Murray Tilyard, Executive Director, South Link Health Inc.
Other commercial project experience relevant to health sector work
- Nationally recognised commercial contracting and plain language drafting specialist. (See under ‘Authorship’)
- Widely experienced in the drafting of strategic/high value relationship contracts and advising on tendering and contracting processes in a variety of industry sectors.
- Extensive IT contracting and outsourcing experience.