Darlington nurse case flying under the radar

[hardstareglare]

Aibu to think that the Darlington nurse case in court right now has not had much press and that it is a very important case.

Agreed. So angry it hasn't had more coverage.

john harvey jones? He did two different NHS trusts - one was Shropshire and the other was Bradford

That was clear from the prickly tone of the Trusts many HR and Workplace managers. No matter how much they tried to deflect onto other staff and mangle the English language, to such an extent they sounded like idiots at times, when push came to shove none of them could hide the fact that in this case the process was very much the punishment for the uppity women who wouldnt get with the program and shut up be re educated and then fuck off.

Although it seems incomprehensible why an NHS bureaucracy would spend considerable resources to destroy the careers of nurses, the project seems to be driven by NHS staff with power holding a bizarre ideology who, when it is challenged, will marshall the resources of their organisation to destroy heretics.

I mean, this is mad, isn't it?

Mind you, if this had been presented to Arthur Miller, he'd have rubbed his hands in glee and immediately set to work on The Crucible II.

And yet when the wonderful @jophoenixstood up to give her evidence all of the same managers were conspicuous by their absence from the courtroom.

So true!

The managers who couldn't make a decision and passed it all around the houses when it landed on their desk should all be fired. Hire some more nurses with the money and I bet they'd get through the A&E waiting times quicker and have higher patient satisfaction.

Imagine getting paid that and not even being able to make a decision.

The point is, that any or all of them could have made the decision, but none of them wanted to be the one without a chair when the music stopped.That would have left them facing the wrath of the trans activists and the unions.

That's an important point. When the nurses' livelihoods were on the line, the vindictive NHS management aligned with the unions and the unhinged NHS activists and the man who was invading the nurses' single-sex space so that they could wreck the careers of the nurses.

If this didn't involve making a stand against "trans rights", the BBC and the Guardian would have been kicking up an almighty storm at such a scandal.

It is a Doctor in the NHS Fife case but the person in the Darlington case is an Operating Dept Practitioner (ODP) rather than a Doctor (see photo). Probably still on the same NHS Pay Band as the Darlington Nurses (Band 5).

NHS Health Careers - Operating department practitioner
https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/allied-health-professionals/roles-allied-health-professions/operating-department-practitioner

National Careers Service - Operating department practitioner
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/operating-department-practitioner

The Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) regulates ODPs and most other clinical staff groups employed in the NHS (but not Doctors and Nurses).

In March 2023 the HCPC published ODP Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) information held by the HCPC with regards to the nine protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010.

Diversity data: operating department practitioners - March 2023

Gender Reassignment

Question asked:
"Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?"

Accompanying note in portal:
Your gender identity may be the same as your assigned sex, but it may be different. You may identify as the opposite gender to your assigned sex, you may identify with neither, or with a self-described gender identity.

5: Not recorded
14,575: Recorded

40: Yes to Gender Reassignment (0.3%)
5: Prefer to self-describe (0.03%)
455: Prefer not to say (3%)

See full data in screenshot. Data on Sex is reported separately so it is not reported how many of the above are male and how many are female.

Sex

Question asked:
"What is your Sex?"

Accompanying note in portal:
This is the sex you were assigned at birth and we asked you to provide this information when you registered with the HCPC. For births registered in the UK, this will either be male or female. However, some other countries may include 'intersex' as an option. We also ask if your gender identity is different from the sex you were assigned at birth. Your gender identity may be the same as your assigned sex, but it may be different. You may identify as the opposite gender to your assigned sex, you may identify with neither, or with a self-described gender identity.

9,670: Female (62%)
5,420: Male (35%)
5: Intersex (0.03%)
430: Prefer not to say (3%)

See full data in screenshot.

NOTE: Not all Registrants complete EDI questions in part or at all. This leads to anomalies such as Sex data being recorded for 1,000 more Registrants than for Gender Reassignment.

The page linked below contains tables showing ODP Diversity Data for all nine protected characteristics. Each table also shows the number and percentage of responses for total HCPC registrants for comparison with ODPs.

https://mrs.hcpc-uk.org/resources/data/2023/diversity-data-operating-department-practitioners-2023/

In case anyone is interested . . .

Diversity factsheets and reports for all professions regulated by the HCPC
https://www.hcpc-uk.org/about-us/insights-and-data/diversity/

Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) Equality and diversity reports
These are spreadsheets you have to download
https://www.nmc.org.uk/about-us/reports-and-accounts/equality-and-diversity-reports/

The NMC register 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025

Gender split of the register:

88.8% Woman
11.2% Man

(It is safe to assume that some "women" are male and some "men" are female)
https://www.nmc.org.uk/globalassets/sitedocuments/data-reports/march-2025/annual-data-report-march-2025.pdf

For quick comparison, ODPs are three times as likely to be men (35%) than nurses are likely to be men (11.2%).

From my reading of Tribunal Tweets' transcription, this is a slight misunderstanding. The nurses were allowed to talk amongst themselves about their complaint about RH's behaviour and the admittance of men into the female changing room. What the weren't allowed to talk about was Rose Henderson's counter complaint against them. (Which is currently on pause. Some might think so it can be held against them and used at the end of this tribunal, but I can't possibly comment.)

I was listening with one ear so that may well be the case. It would still have been unreasonable of HR not to allow discussion of a complaint against them all though!

I think it's normally policy to not allow people to talk about complaints against them. Rose probably wasn't allowed to talk about the nurse's complaint against him. I don't know that I think it's a reasonable policy generally. It curtails people's access to information and support, but it is fairly common and it probably helps workplaces stop complaints becoming workplace dramas.

Question asked:
"Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?"
Accompanying note in portal:
Your gender identity may be the same as your assigned sex, but it may be different. You may identify as the opposite gender to your assigned sex, you may identify with neither, or with a self-described gender identity.
5: Not recorded
14,575: Recorded
40: Yes to Gender Reassignment (0.3%)
5: Prefer to self-describe (0.03%)
455: Prefer not to say (3%)
See full data in screenshot. Data on Sex is reported separately so it is not reported how many of the above are male and how many are female.

------------------

So if you don’t have a gender identity there’s no option.

Gender split of the register:
88.8% Woman
11.2% Man
(It is safe to assume that some "women" are male and some "men" are female)

So what is the point of recording stats that are meaningless.

I'm astounded the NHS spend so much money defending these cases. Has the decision about the Sandie Peggie case been made yet?

When I read about Karen's experience, I cried. How she must have felt at the time, and since...the futility, the frustration, the anger, the unfairness of her situation...she probably felt she'd entered a parallel universe 😳
How the theatre manager could out and out LIE like that, just so that she could be seen as 'inclusive' to the poor maligned hurty menz feelz.

It is an outrage that the BBC haven't regularly reported on this (when they do, their headlines are at worse, hate-filled towards women to the more ambiguous). The Maxine Croxhall 'eye roll' ( which was a thing of beauty) debacle just highlights that the corporation are so caught up in DEI still, just like the NHS but it makes me horrified to think how many other business', large, small, nationwide, world-wide have been sucked into the world of #bekind (ah but dont forget, that only applies to women!!) and as a result women are having to live with this on a daily basis without a voice.

I'm mad as hell about it all. 🤬

This is an awful case, thanks @hardstareglare and for your subsequent messages. I agree about what you said about the missing women in China, globally that women are murdered (one every 10 minutes). It's because of our natal sex. Nothing to do with gender identity or feelings. Gender ideology is THE most sexist, misogynistic, women hating belief system. It's astounding to me that it has been embraced by those who should know better (academics, our public bodies, government, NHS). Yet also unsurprisingly really, because it prioritises the feelings of men over women's safety, dignity and privacy so that's just par for the course really.

The tribunal threads about this over on the feminism: s&g board on mumsnet are eye opening. "Rose" with his holey underwear exposing his MALE genitals to the nurses, he's the one that's protected and not them. Unbelievable. I see it as sexual assault and the NHS cheered it on by supporting him.

I honestly think if any other protected group was ignored in this way there would be uproar.

Well. They said they 'concluded their review' and will be taking 'no further action'. On Friday. Following an outcry, a lot of negative PR for the police in the press and hard work from Susan's lawyer and the Free Speech Union, from an incident on the 4th September. The police didn't exactly jump to it of their own free will and values. They have offered her a meeting as a bit of a sop to try and make themselves look less awful.

x.com/fraserihudghton/status/1986759821979217973

I've googled now, which is what I should have done yesterday, it was Gerry Robinson, at Rotherham General Hospital.

This is why it is so important to give these cases the oxygen of publicity, so that the powers that be can be called to account for their actions. Especially when the national media (looking at you BBC!) are trying to suppress them.

Absolutely this.

It's easy to see why the Darlington nurses went to the press; they were more or less whistleblowing. And it's not easy as you say, because so much of the press is activist controlled and do their best to hide it all. But the only thing these people care at all about is bad PR and being publically embarassed.

They're fine with believing these things and doing/saying these things when it's behind closed doors, but once it gets out into the public for some reason they start acting very embarrassed and angry at it being heard, and grudgingly start to acknowledge actual law and reality.

So did the unions support them?
I don’t work in the industry but thought nurses had their own union?