NHS Whistleblower Tribunal Thread (breastfeeding space, maternity discrimination, workplace culture)

[NHSWhistleblowerVAWG]

A senior NHS clinician and manager (18+ years’ experience) has brought an Employment Tribunal claim against her employer, a prestigious London NHS Trust, alleging sex discrimination, maternity discrimination, and victimisation. More details can be found here.

One of the key incidents:

• After returning from maternity leave in 2023, she requested a safe, hygienic space to express breast milk at work
• She was directed to use a bathroom/toilet facility
• Concerns were raised by her but not adequately addressed

She raised formal complaints. The claim alleges that the situation escalated into further adverse treatment rather than being resolved.

She experienced bullying and harassment by senior male managers including directors. She raised other safeguarding and safety concerns. Eventually, what began as individual misconduct, became organisational abuse, across all levels of the organisation.

The case is now proceeding to Employment Tribunal, and the anonymous claimant has been verified by CrowdJustice and she will be represented by Rahman Lowe LLP providing the fundraising campaign is successful.

Additional context:

• She has not been paid for 18 months during this process
• She self-represented for over two years without access to proper legal support
• She is now fundraising to cover the initial legal stages of tribunal

The case raises wider questions around:

• Violence against women in the workplace, testing the governments commitment to Violence Against and Women and Girls (VAWG) as promised in the government report published in December 2025
• Gendered harassment and abuse against women, reported in the NHS, the UK’s largest employer
• How female whistleblowers generally, and NHS whistleblowers specifically, are systematically silenced
• Thousands of £ in taxpayer money personally defending those in power, without completion of independent investigation

The NHS employs over 1 million women and is one of the largest employers of women globally - this case has wider implications beyond one individual.
Interested to hear views, particularly from fellow mothers or anyone working in the NHS.

Ah yes, not saying I also worked for the same employer and had to hand express in the toilets on returning to work after birth of my babies were born to avoid mastitis... but I darent even when anonymous..

Wow that’s awful… they employ one million women as well. Quite depressing ffs

If the case has reasonable expectations of success, why isn't a nursing union supporting the claimant?

Where does it say she's a nurse?

OP @NHSWhistleblowerVAWG this might be better in the feminism section, they typically are very supportive of women's issues there.

I apologise, it doesn't.

Thank you, I hadn't heard of this. I also work in the NHS and am sadly still not surprised. I have donated to the Crowd Justice fundraiser.

Thank you - we pre-selected this topic but MNHQ changed it to Petitions & activism. Any more eyes you can get on this by sharing etc. would be much appreciated.

If you ask MNHQ to switch it- I asked them but they advised you need to be the one to request it. There have been much support for other NHS tribunals where women's rights are central- so I would encourage you to try!

Despite making an error about the claimant being a nurse, my question about why a union is not funding this remains valid.

Perhaps she is not in a union? Not all clinicians are, it's not mandatory (although in my experience of the NHS, unwise).

It's impossible to suppprt when only presented with one side of the argument. I handle and advise on employment tribunals professionally and there are always three sides to a story. The claimant's, the respondent's and the truth. The difficulty comes in the proving and without a rsik assessment regarding prospects, few would provide their own money.

I feel with a vengeance that the NHS is dysfunctional and toxic and needs to be replaced but I am not persuaded how this case will help the claimant, the NHS or the people.

One of the key incidents:

• After returning from maternity leave in 2023, she requested a safe, hygienic space to express breast milk at work
• She was directed to use a bathroom/toilet facility
• Concerns were raised by her but not adequately addressed

It would be very helpful if this incident was included in the information on the Crowdfunder.

NHSWhistleblowerVAWG I came back to read your OP again because the info on Crowd Justice is incredibly vague and I wondered if I was missing something.

I have donated to a lot of Employment Tribunal cases and I might well donate to this one at some point but if you (assuming it is you) want to raise enough money to fund your case then it would help a great deal to put these "key incidents" up front in the crowd funder.

TBH at the moment it just looks like a very expensive way to expose how much it is costing NHS Resolution to defend cases that you have already brought against individual members of staff - when it would be a lot cheaper to spill the beans to a journalist under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

Like other PP I also wonder that you have not mentioned a Union anywhere. I am not suggesting that a Union would necessarily support you, there have been plenty of successful Employment Tribunals funded by Crowd Justice where Unions had refused to support one of their members. That said, IMHO no one in their right mind in a clinical role in the NHS would fail to join a Union for protection.

In a previous life I was both a Senior Union Rep and an NHS Whistleblowing Officer and the explanation on Crowd Justice comes over very much like the initial contacts I had with aggrieved members and Whistleblowers, ie. venting righteous fury and full of generalisations but short on facts. (With the exception of details given about amounts the Trust has paid for legal services, which though some might be related to your situation are not necessarily relevant to your case.)

In fact a lot of the information on Crowd Justice is not relevant to proving your case for discrimination - although it would make a good newspaper article about systemic problems with NHS culture and repeated failures to improve things, both of which I am unfortunately very well aware of.

IMHO it would improve your appeal for funding if you dropped a lot of that and added the key incidents your case relating to:

• Pregnancy and maternity discrimination
• Sex discrimination
• Disability discrimination
• Harassment and victimisation
• Unlawful deduction of wages
• Unfavourable treatment
• Personal injury

Such as the information given in your OP, ie.

One of the key incidents:

• After returning from maternity leave in 2023, she requested a safe, hygienic space to express breast milk at work
• She was directed to use a bathroom/toilet facility
• Concerns were raised by her but not adequately addressed

By the way, it is amazing that Mumsnet has allowed your post to stand as it explicitly bans funding appeals other than for registered charities so it will disappear if the Mods cotton on or anyone reports it.

(Spoken as an ex-NHS Whistleblowing Officer and Senior Union Rep and hoping that you understand that I am trying to be helpful with constructive criticism rather than being negative about the grounds for your case.)