Education, health & recreation

Health care is evolving fast. A lot of changes are taking place especially in the way things are done, because of internal and external developments. The introduction of a business approach in health care plays a major role in this respect. The quality of health care remains a constant concern. The institutions and care workers need to adapt to these developments.

Education, too is characterized more and more by a business approach. Schools are increasingly free in the establishment of educational programmes, but also have an increasing obligation to account for their decisions and the funds they spend. The aim is to achieve a maximum educational result for the students by working in a result-oriented way. This includes not only their cognitive performance but also their social skills and the ability of a school to retain students and guide them through their studies without delay and without dropping out. A result-oriented approach requires a different working method from schools and teachers. These developments are monitored closely by parents and students.

 

The need for specialized legal knowledge and experience in the field of health care and education is increasing because of the developments described above. We have a team of specialists from various legal fields ready for you. This team combines the specific legal knowledge of health care and education with specific experience in both sectors.

Please contact Wietze Kastelein for questions about these sectors.

The new holiday legislation came into force on1 January 2012. The changes in the holiday legislation relate to the structure, uptake, payment and cancellation of the minimum holiday entitlement. The new holiday legislation does not apply to the holidays over and above the statutory entitlement. Employers and employees can, therefore make alternative arrangements about the structure, uptake, and cancellation of holidays over and above the statutory entitlement. The limited accrual of holidays of fully and partially disabled employees has been cancelled. That means that healthy and sick workers now have the same minimum of four times the agreed working hours per week. In addition, a deadline for the minimum holiday has been introduced. This deadline means that every employee must take up the minimum accrued holidays within 6 months after the year when the holidays were acquired in a calendar year. The deadline applies to all workers, including sick employees. However, there is one exception: if the (sick) employee has not in all reasonableness been able to take up holidays in the period of 18 months, namely the year of accrual and 6 months thereafter. This is only a small part of the changes in the holiday legislation. Please contact our office for more information about the consequences and problems you may encounter because of the new holiday legislation.

In health care, many apprenticeship/employment contracts are concluded. For example, an employee works at the facility 4 days a week and follows vocational training 1 day per week. A frequently asked question is whether it can be legally agreed that the apprenticeship/employment contract will end by operation of law when the employee ceases his training. In certain circumstances, this is possible. Please contact our office if you would like to know more about this.

Often, a director under the articles of association of the company is employed with the company as an employee on the basis of an employment contract. A question often asked is whether the contract also ends when the director is dismissed by the company from his position as director (often by the shareholders’ meeting). In principle, the termination of the corporate relationship will also lead to the termination of the employment contract. No permission needs to be obtained from UWV WERKbedrijf (the work placement branch of the Employee Insurance Agency) to terminate the employment contract. The legislative proposal for the Management and Supervision (Public and Private Companies) Bill, now adopted by the First Chamber, will mean that directors of listed companies will no longer be employed on the basis of an employment contract.