Introducing Gemma Nicholas, a Senior Associate in our Regulatory Compliance team, based at our London office
Gemma has over 14 years' experience in regulation, 10 years of which has been in the health and social care regulatory sector.
She started her career working for CILEx Regulation conducting professional disciplinary investigations and subsequently worked for the Care Quality Commission (CQC) during which she was seconded to NHS Improvement. Prior to joining VWV, Gemma worked for a boutique law firm specialising in health and social care.
What does your role involve on a day-to-day basis?
I work with GP practices, care homes, home care agencies, supported living providers, independent hospitals, dental practices and online prescribing services; advising clients in relation to all aspects of CQC regulation. I support health and social care providers with registration and enforcement challenges including responses to CQC inspections, representations to warning notices and notices of proposal and appeals to the Care Standards Tribunal.
I regularly represent health and social care providers with safeguarding investigations, prosecutions, and inquest proceedings. I support clients to find pragmatic solutions to their regulatory issues; at times this includes defending director disqualification proceedings, dealing with complaints up to ombudsman level, issuing judicial review proceedings in the administrative court and appealing fines at Crown Court.
A major part of my day-to-day work with clients involves understanding their business and the solution that they desire. Those early conversations with clients empower me to provide effective advice and support them in taking action that achieves results.
Tell us about a work highlight?
I have two work highlights. The first is my track record for successfully obtaining permission from the administrative court to judicially review the CQC. Case examples include challenging the CQC's decision to downgrade a care home's rating and challenging the CQC's sample size of medical records during an inspection of an online GP service. The second work highlight is successfully defending an investigation by the Insolvency Service to disqualify a care home owner as a director. Director disqualification involves an individual being banned from acting as a company director of any company. In this case the Insolvency Service proposed to launch proceedings against a care home owner on the basis that the care home business had faced CQC enforcement action resulting in the care home closing and the care home business entering into insolvency. After receiving my 70-page letter challenging the investigation, the Insolvency Service backed down.
Tell Us Something Not Many People Know About You?
Having run the London Marathon and many half marathons, my next goal is to complete a triathlon.