Rebecca Carter

Partner

Rebecca has over 20 years’ experience of advising on public procurement law matters, with a particular focus in the life sciences sector. She has assisted many UK contracting authorities with running their procurement processes including a wide range of NHS Trusts, the Ministry of Justice, the Metropolitan Police Authority, the Post Office, North London Waste Authority and various local authorities, Universities and other contracting authorities.

Rebecca draws on this deep understanding of how the UK public sector runs its procurements to advise life sciences clients who are participating in these processes. This involves assisting with bid strategy, participating in dialogue/negotiation sessions, drafting legal elements of the tender, ensuring tender submissions are compliant and are easy to evaluate (maximising the chances of scoring highly) and advising on potential legal challenges.

Rebecca’s experience covers all of the main procurement processes including open, restricted, competitive dialogue and competitive with negotiation. She also regularly provides training to clients on bidding for public contracts, public procurement law compliance and risk management.

Rebecca also has experience of advising life sciences clients that are receiving “direct awards” – contracts that are let by the public sector on an exceptional basis without a competitive tender process. While it is for the public sector party to ensure that these direct awards are made in a compliant way, it is also in the interest of the supplier to ensure that these contracts are not subsequently set aside.

Rebecca’s life sciences experience includes advising:

A global biopharmaceutical company on various public procurement matters in relation to its contracts to supply pharmaceutical products to the NHS. This has included advising on NHS frameworks and advising on the client’s rights where a tender has been unsuccessful. We have also provided training to the sales team on how best to respond to public tenders in regulated competitions so as to maximise the tender’s chance of success.
A international diagnostics group on a series of directly awarded contracts to supply COVID-19 testing kits and instrument platforms to the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
UK Specialist Hospitals Limited on its bid for a number of contracts to build and operate new treatment centres under the UK Department of Health’s Independent Sector Treatment Centre programme. The contracts included the provision of clinical services in relation to various elective procedures.
Hitachi Europe on its bid in a procurement process run by the Christie NHS Foundation Trust and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for a contract to develop a National Proton Beam Therapy Service treating up to 1,500 patients a year over two sites.
Impregilo on its bid to the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust for a PFI project at the Churchill Hospital. The contract included the construction and operation of a 35,000 m2 hospital building, including provision of medical equipment and facilities management services.