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Alison Castrey |
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| Frequently Asked Questions |
This page last updated on 1 April 2007
What qualifications do you have for the services you offer?
From 1993 to 2001, I worked for Veale Wasbrough (a major law firm in Bristol), at first as a commercial litigator and then in their team advising independent schools and colleges where I built up a national reputation in special educational needs and special schools.
Since April 2000, I have been a Mental Health Act Manager for an adult secure unit / independent hospital, The Hayes Unit (operated by the National Autistic Society), near Bristol.
Do you have any ‘hands on' experience in the Care Standards sector?
A key part of my work was in submitting the school’s registration to the National Care Standards Commission, and in driving through the various policies and procedures that needed to be updated or written for the Minimum Standards and Regulations. I also gained significant experience in employment law, medical/nursing ethics, behaviour management (physical restraint) systems, health and safety, and structural issues such as incorporation and charity governance.
What about residential and nursing care for older people?
Who are your clients?
How much do you charge?
Don't lawyers just complicate things?
As a businesswoman myself, I have practical experience of many of the pressures faced by those operating care homes, schools and social care agencies, and have particular experience in trying to strike a fair balance between the needs of independent providers and those of local authorities and government agencies.
What if we already have our own solicitors?
My background is as a solicitor, having obtained an MA from Oxford University in 1987. I qualified in 1991 and did most of my professional training with Needham & James Solicitors, part of which subsequently became Dibb Lupton Alsop (DLA).
Yes. From 2001 until 2003, I was the Legal Manager and Assistant Bursar at Cotswold Chine Home-School in Gloucestershire. I advised the trustees and was a member of the school’s senior management team, and was therefore involved in every aspect of the day-to-day running of an independent, charitable special school and children’s home for pupils with emotional and behavioural difficulties and/or complex medical needs.
Since setting up my independent legal consultancy in June 2003, I have been involved in negotiating elderly care placement contracts with local authorities and in making a detailed submission to the Office of Fair Trading in response the Consumers' Association's "supercomplaint" about the operation of the adult care home sector. I also undertake 'Regulation 26 visits' for a group of nursing homes, and have been involved in policy drafting, inspection preparation, negotiations with the NCSC, Court of Protection work, and dealing with enforcement notices served against a nursing home.
I work right across the social care, education and nursing care sectors, for private, voluntary and local authority providers. I do not normally accept work from direct service users or their families. Some of my work is as a consultant for other firms of solicitors.
£75 per hour plus VAT, together with reasonable travel and subsistence expenses, where applicable. Please e-mail me if you wish to see my full terms and conditions for consultancy services.
I aim to give advice that is straightforward and jargon-free, to suggest solutions that are practicable but attentive to detail, and to provide a high quality, prompt and expert service at a cost affordable to the majority of the social care sector.
My specialism is very particular, and normally complements rather than surplants the work of your existing legal advisers. I am more than happy to work alongside your professional advisers, and do not seek to 'poach' work from them.