Go straight to what you need. Every situation is different.
A plain-English guide for health and wellness practitioners facing restrictive covenants, non-compete clauses, and employer intimidation.
Read your rightsDo not respond to the letter, email, or solicitor — not even to acknowledge receipt. Nothing you say right now helps you. Silence is not an admission.
If you've been sent an undertaking, settlement offer, or consent order — do not sign it. Many practitioners sign under panic and lock themselves in permanently. You have time.
Locate a copy of your employment contract — specifically the clauses at the end covering post-termination restrictions. If you don't have it, you're entitled to request one from your former employer.
Paste your clauses into the Contract Reviewer below. Run the Reasonableness Checker. Get a plain-English picture of what you're actually dealing with before you speak to anyone.
Search for an employment solicitor with restrictive covenant experience. Most offer a free 30-minute first call. Book it for tomorrow. You don't need to have answers yet — just book it.
The vast majority of threatening letters from employers are designed to intimidate — not litigate. Pursuing an injunction is expensive, uncertain, and time-consuming. Most employers know this.
Keep a copy somewhere easy to find. Share it with a colleague who might need it.
Restrictive covenants are clauses that try to limit what you can do after you leave a job. They come in four main forms — each with different legal weight:
Prevents you from working for a competitor or setting up a rival business within a defined area for a set period.
Stops you from actively approaching former clients to invite them to follow you.
Broader — prevents you working with former clients even if they approach you first.
Protects genuinely sensitive business information such as proprietary systems or client databases.
"A restrictive covenant is only enforceable in English law if it protects a legitimate business interest AND is no wider than reasonably necessary to do so."
Foundational principle — Nordenfelt v Maxim Nordenfelt (1894)Courts assess enforceability at the time the contract was signed — not when the dispute arises. A covenant that seemed reasonable when you joined may be unenforceable given how your role has evolved.
In health and wellness, this matters enormously. Your seniority, the nature of your client contact, and whether you built those relationships through your own skill — rather than through the employer's infrastructure — all bear directly on what any court will uphold.
130 years of case law has steadily narrowed the circumstances in which employers can enforce these clauses. Here is what the courts have established.
This is the part employers rarely draw your attention to.
If clients followed you because of personal trust in you — not the clinic's brand — it's very difficult to establish they were a commercial asset of the employer.
The employer must prove loss was caused by your breach. If a client would have left regardless, that breaks the causal chain entirely.
In health and wellness, client relationships are often deeply personal. A client doesn't just purchase a service — they trust a specific person.
"Would those clients have remained with the employer if the practitioner had not left?"
If the honest answer is no — because the client relationship is fundamentally personal to you — the employer's loss argument weakens significantly. This is exactly why client intent evidence is powerful.
There is a part of the restrictive covenant debate that almost never gets discussed clearly: what happens when compliance means you simply cannot earn a living?
Courts have consistently held that restrictions must be proportionate. A clause that effectively forces a practitioner out of their only viable profession for months — without compensation — faces a serious challenge under the public interest limb of Nordenfelt and the broader doctrine that restraints must be reasonably necessary.
If you are paid during a restriction period (garden leave), the employer has a much stronger case. If you are simply shown the door and told not to work — with no income — the argument for enforcement weakens considerably. Courts are far less sympathetic to restrictions that deny practitioners income without any compensatory mechanism.
If your specialism is your only viable means of income — you're a physiotherapist, a personal trainer, a dental hygienist — a total non-compete in that field doesn't restrict competition. It prevents you from feeding yourself. Courts take this seriously, particularly where the restriction is industry-wide rather than targeted.
This sounds narrow. It is not. A one-mile radius in central London covers one of the most densely populated professional environments in the world — potentially tens of thousands of potential clients and dozens of competing employers in any given specialism. The question a court asks is whether the restriction maps to where the employer's clients actually came from.
If clients travel to the employer from across London — as is typical for specialist health practitioners in the city — then a one-mile restriction doesn't protect a coherent geographic interest at all. It's either too small to matter as a business protection, or too large to justify as a proportionate restraint on someone whose clients come from everywhere. Neither framing helps the employer.
Where the clause prevents someone working for any employer within one mile, the argument weakens further still. In a dense urban environment like London, a blanket ban on all employers within that radius doesn't protect a specific client relationship or a specific piece of confidential information — it attempts to quarantine an entire employment market. In Prophet plc v Huggett (2014), the Court of Appeal struck down a clause whose practical effect was to prevent the employee from working meaningfully in their industry at all. A one-mile ban covering all London employers in a practitioner's field risks exactly the same outcome: a court finding that the clause's real purpose is to obstruct a career move, not to protect a legitimate business interest.
"Geographic scope must correspond to the area from which the employer actually draws its clients — not simply where its premises happen to be. A clause whose practical effect prevents meaningful employment in a dense urban market faces the same challenge as one that shuts a practitioner out of their industry entirely."
Mason v Provident (1913) applied alongside Prophet plc v Huggett (2014)Restrictive covenants aren't the only weapon in the intimidation toolkit. Here are five others — what they are, how scary they actually are, and what you can do.
Some contracts assert that client notes, treatment plans, or the client relationships you built during employment belong to the employer as intellectual property or business assets.
The reality: courts treat personal therapeutic relationships with considerable scepticism when it comes to ownership claims. A relationship built on your individual skill and trust is not easily classified as a business asset — particularly where there is no client database, proprietary system, or formal referral structure involved.
Arguable — depends on structure"If you leave within 12/18/24 months, you will repay £X in training costs." These appear in contracts across the health sector and can look terrifying.
The reality: clawback clauses are only enforceable to the extent they reflect genuine, demonstrable costs. Inflated figures, training that primarily benefited the employer, or CPD that was required by your professional registration body are all challengeable. Courts also look at whether the clause operates as a genuine pre-estimate of loss or as a disproportionate penalty.
Often overstated — always challenge the figureClauses claiming your LinkedIn connections, Instagram following, or professional profile built during employment belong to the business. Increasingly common. Deliberately alarming.
The reality: this area is largely untested in UK courts. The consensus among employment lawyers is that personal professional profiles, personal followings, and connections built through your own name and reputation are not straightforwardly assignable to an employer. Accounts used primarily for business purposes are more complex. But the clause is often broader than any court would enforce.
Emerging area — seek specialist adviceA pre-specified sum written into the contract as the damages you'll pay for any breach — designed to bypass the employer's need to prove actual loss in court.
The reality: liquidated damages clauses must represent a genuine pre-estimate of loss at the time of contracting — not a deterrent figure plucked from the air. Courts will strike down clauses that operate as penalties rather than honest loss estimates. If the figure bears no relationship to the employer's likely actual loss, it is vulnerable. This is a well-established area of law that works in practitioners' favour.
Often challengeable as a penaltyProvisions preventing you from joining any business where a former colleague also works — or from working alongside anyone who left within a specified window.
The reality: team move clauses are often drafted so broadly that they would prevent entirely coincidental employment arrangements — which courts won't accept. The restriction must be targeted at preventing deliberate, coordinated poaching. Broad "no colleagues" provisions routinely fail because they go far beyond what's needed to protect a legitimate business interest.
Broad versions routinely failYour employer insists on keeping you on payroll and away from work during your notice period — preventing you from joining a new employer immediately.
The reality: garden leave is generally lawful if your contract provides for it. However, excessively long garden leave periods — particularly for practitioners in client-facing roles — can be challenged. Critically: if you are serving garden leave and are paid, the subsequent post-termination covenant period may be reduced accordingly, since courts recognise you can't be held in limbo twice.
Lawful if contracted — but length is everythingAnonymised accounts from London practitioners who faced exactly what you may be facing. Names and identifying details have been changed.
"I got the letter on a Tuesday. By Friday I'd spoken to a solicitor and understood my actual position. The whole thing collapsed inside three weeks."
A physiotherapist in South London received a threatening solicitor's letter two weeks after setting up independently in Clapham. Her former employer — a multi-site clinic group — claimed a 12-month non-compete covering a three-mile radius from their Wandsworth premises. Her solicitor identified that she'd had no formal client management role and all referrals came through a central booking system, meaning no legitimate business interest in those client relationships could be established. The employer withdrew the claim without proceedings.
"They applied for an injunction. The judge refused it at the first hearing. We never heard from them again."
A personal trainer in East London left a premium gym group in Shoreditch to go independent. His contract contained a one-mile radius non-compete covering all employers and a non-solicitation clause covering all clients he'd worked with. His former employer applied for an emergency injunction. The court held that no legitimate business interest was established — his clients had followed him based on personal coaching relationships built through his own skill, not through any proprietary methodology of the employer. The one-mile clause was noted as particularly difficult to justify given London's density and the breadth of employers it caught. Injunction refused. No further action taken.
"The training clawback figure they quoted was £9,000. What I actually owed, on proper examination, was closer to £1,200."
A dental hygienist in North London left a private practice in Islington after three years and was presented with a training cost recovery demand citing CPD courses, equipment training, and an implant certification programme. A solicitor's analysis found that the CPD was required for her GDC registration and therefore primarily benefited her professionally rather than the employer, the equipment training was routine onboarding, and only the implant certification represented genuine employer investment. The demand was reduced by 87% before any formal dispute was issued.
"My contract said I couldn't work within one mile for any employer. My solicitor told me that clause had serious problems before I'd even finished explaining it."
A sports therapist in West London left a corporate wellness company in Hammersmith to join a clinic in Fulham — less than a mile away. The employer relied on a non-compete preventing him from working for any employer in the health or fitness sector within a one-mile radius for six months. His solicitor challenged the clause on two grounds: the blanket "any employer" scope went far beyond protecting a specific client pool or confidential information, and the practical effect was to remove him from the majority of his employable market in that part of London. The employer did not pursue proceedings.
"I was terrified for six weeks. Then nothing. I wish I'd taken advice on day one instead of week four."
A GP-trained private doctor in Central London left a concierge medical group in Marylebone to set up an independent practice. Her former employer sent a letter citing a 12-month non-solicitation clause and a confidentiality provision, alleging she had contacted former patients. She had not approached anyone — several patients had contacted her directly after finding her through a professional directory. Her solicitor wrote a single response letter clarifying the distinction between solicitation and patient-initiated contact, and requesting evidence of any alleged breach. The employer never replied.
"They wanted 12 months. We got it down to five. I was working again within weeks."
A women's health physiotherapist in South-East London left a specialist clinic in Greenwich to establish her own practice. Her contract contained a 12-month non-solicitation covering all patients she had treated and a non-compete covering a two-mile radius. Her solicitor argued that given her seniority level, the personal nature of her specialist client relationships, and the absence of any garden leave payment, 12 months was disproportionate. Following without-prejudice correspondence, the former employer agreed to a five-month non-solicitation with the non-compete dropped entirely. She was practising independently within six weeks of leaving.
These accounts are illustrative composites based on common patterns in UK employment disputes. They do not represent specific legal proceedings and should not be relied upon as precedent. Every case turns on its own facts.
These are the most common misconceptions that keep practitioners trapped. Here's the truth.
If it's in your contract, it's enforceable.
Courts regularly strike down contract clauses that are too wide, too long, or lack a legitimate business interest — regardless of whether both parties signed them. A signature is not a rubber stamp.
They can take you to court and you'll definitely lose.
Even if they issue proceedings, the employer must obtain an injunction (expensive and uncertain) and then prove actual financial loss (very difficult in personal service relationships). Most employers never follow through.
You can't contact your clients at all once you leave.
Non-solicitation means you cannot actively approach clients to invite them to follow you. It does not prevent clients from contacting you, making their own choice, and working with you independently. Those are fundamentally different things.
The threatening letter means legal action is coming.
Threatening letters are frequently designed to produce compliance through fear — not as a prelude to litigation. Litigation is costly, time-consuming, and uncertain. Many employers use letters precisely because they don't want to go to court.
Your clients belong to the business you worked for.
Clients are not property. If a client's relationship is with you personally — built on personal trust, your individual skill, and your therapeutic relationship — courts have consistently held this is not a straightforward business asset the employer can claim.
The longer the restriction, the more enforceable it is.
The opposite is often true. Longer restrictions face higher scrutiny. Courts assess whether the duration is the minimum necessary to protect a legitimate interest — not the maximum an employer could get away with writing.
You can't afford to fight this.
Many employment solicitors offer free initial consultations. In cases where employers pursue weak covenants, costs can sometimes be recovered. And in many cases, a single well-informed letter from a solicitor ends the matter entirely — without ever reaching court.
If you ignore the letter, things will get worse.
Not responding immediately while you take legal advice is a sensible, standard approach — not an escalation. What makes things worse is panic-signing an undertaking, making admissions in writing, or acting in ways that actually do breach a valid covenant.
Four tools to help you understand your position, assess your risks, and take action. None of this replaces legal advice — but knowledge is power.
Paste the restrictive covenant clauses from your employment contract. Our AI will analyse each clause, assess its likely enforceability, and give you a plain-English breakdown with a traffic-light rating.
⚠ Remove your name, employer name, and any personally identifying information before pasting. This content is processed by AI and should not include sensitive personal data.
This analysis is generated by AI and does not constitute legal advice. Always share the output with a qualified employment solicitor before taking action.
Answer five questions about your covenant and get an instant assessment of how enforceable it is likely to be — and the key arguments in your favour.
This is an indicative assessment only. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon without consultation with a qualified employment solicitor.
Enter your termination date and restriction duration to see exactly where you are in your restriction period — and what you can and can't do at each stage.
Phase guidance is illustrative. What you can and cannot do depends on your specific contract terms and whether your covenant is valid. Always take independent legal advice before acting.
Received a threatening letter from your former employer or their solicitors? Generate a professional, measured first response — buying you time to take proper legal advice without admitting anything.
This letter is a starting point only. It is not legal advice. Have it reviewed by a solicitor before sending. Its purpose is to buy time and avoid accidental admissions while you seek proper legal advice.
One of the most powerful pieces of evidence in any restrictive covenant dispute is a simple statement from your clients confirming that their relationship is with you — not your former employer. This doesn't require a solicitor. It just requires honesty.
I am writing to confirm my position regarding my healthcare / wellness practitioner relationship.
I have been a client of [Practitioner Name] since [Date]. My decision to seek treatment / support has always been based on my personal trust in, and relationship with, [Practitioner Name] as an individual.
I wish to confirm that:
I understand this statement may be used in connection with a legal or employment matter and confirm its contents are true to the best of my knowledge.
Seek independent advice before agreeing to any settlement, variation, or undertaking. Signing under duress rarely helps your position — it often locks it in permanently.
Look for an employment solicitor with experience in restrictive covenants. Many offer a free 30-minute consultation. Start with the Employment Lawyers Association or the Law Society's Find a Solicitor tool.
Keep copies of your contract, all written communications, and records of your client relationships. Evidence is everything if this escalates.
You cannot solicit clients in breach of a valid covenant, but clients can proactively choose to follow you. Know the difference. When in doubt, say nothing until you have advice.
The Client Declaration Letter above is a starting point. Client statements confirming the personal nature of your relationship are among the most powerful evidence available to you.
Threatening letters are often designed to intimidate, not litigate. Many employers never follow through — because they know their covenants won't hold up. Understand the difference between a legal threat and a legal action.
This page exists because too many skilled practitioners are being scared into staying in situations that aren't working for them — by legal threats that often don't hold up.
We believe practitioners should be free to build the careers they want, serve the clients who trust them, and grow on their own terms.
We are not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. But we believe knowledge is power — and you deserve to walk into any conversation with your employer knowing where you actually stand.