NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #6

[nauticant]

Sandie Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy (VH), has brought claims in the employment tribunal against her employer; Fife Health Board (the Board) and another employee, Dr B Upton. Ms Peggie’s claims are of sexual harassment, harassment related to a protected belief, indirect discrimination and victimisation. Dr Upton claims to be a transwoman, that is observed as male at birth but asserting a female gender identity.

The Employment Tribunal hearing started on Monday 3 January 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on 6 February.

Access to view the hearing remotely can be obtained by sending an email request to [email protected] headed Public Access Request (Peggie v Fife Health Board) 4104864/2024 and requesting access.

The hearing is being live tweeted by https://x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr. This also has threadreaderapp archives of live-tweeting of the sessions of the hearing for those who can't follow on Twitter, for example: archive.is/xkSxy.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: https://nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse

Thread 2: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2

Thread 3: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268347-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-3

Thread 4: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5268942-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-4

Thread 5: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269149-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-5

If, as I suspect, NHS Fife and Dr Upton have failed to disclose weeks of pertinent notes/emails and investigations they have quite possibly mislead JR too. I can't imagine that she or the NHS Scotland legal team would have told the respondents to exclude the docs.

If I were a shiny new KC I would be absolutely livid.

Tribunal Tweets deserves to be publicly funded. Without it, hardly anybody would have a clue about how appallingly GC women are treated by their employers.

I hope Sandie and her family are having a much better weekend in the knowledge that so many people are right behind her and are shocked at the way she was treated.

We wait....

Is anyone else reflecting that we'd have known nothing about what was happening if NHS Fife and Upton had succeeded in having the proceedings held privately?

I'm thinking about that and how it would embolden NHS Scotland and NHS Fife to change none of their ways or how they apply their processes.

There'd be no sunlight.

NB: I wish it were possible to mandate that the metadata search were conducted by a neutral 3rd party.

PS: xd with madcats - yes, TT are key to the sunlight!

Is your evidence of anti trans beliefs the fact that she pointed out that NHS Fife were unlawfully permitting a biological male to use a female single sex facility?

The workplace regs are clear. If someone is required to change their clothes for work purposes the employers must provide separate facilities for men and women.

All parties to the FWS case in the Supreme Court agreed that in the absence of a GRC your legal sex is your birth sex.

Dr Upton had not been in the process of transitioning long enough when the incidents happened for DU to have lawfully met the criteria for a GRC.

Therefore at the time of the incidents DU was legally as well as biologically a man.

NHS Fife unlawfully permitted and DU unlawfully chose to use the female changing room.

So is it your contention that it is anti trans to expect trans people to obey the law?

How could JR fail to notice the missing documents?

I can understand she may have been misled but surely in ensuring that she understands the chain of events she must have noticed that there were gaps and that the decision making process was poorly represented in the documents that were available.

Bring back private changing rooms then everyone is sweet.

I'm not sure that private (ie individual) changing rooms have ever been the norm as workplace provision (unlike, eg, in shops, where customers need to be seduced to some extent by comfortable provisions).
And even if the NHS were to commit to them, it is unlikely that every relevant workplace (including the smallest and least resourceful employers) would be able/willing to provide them (especially when you take into account the diversity of workplace environments). That is why the relevant regulations specify what is considered to be required when indivdual rooms are not available -- and includes the requirement that the spaces should be single sex

Women are responsible for mens behaviour again - isnt that the first rule of misogyny? This is not 1953, women are not responsible for their husband.

Sandie seems to have tried to be both professional and kind, referring to Dr Upton as Beth, leaving the changing room or not entering if she knew he was there. The cartoon from Twitter is an excellent summary, only undressing in front of him while being utterly admiring was going to be enough. Even then he might have found her admiration wasnt gushy enough.

We dont know the content or heading of Dr Searle's email. NC obviously thinks there was something wrong with it so there probably was. If it just referred to staffing matters I'd expect responses expressing concern about cover after suspension of a highly experienced nurse and maybe querying if that was essential.

We shouldnt be speculating about the email's contents until it's public. We also shouldnt be commenting on the employment of Dr Upton's family.

@Booboobagins If you're going to accuse Sandie Peggie of making derogatory comments about Trans people then you need to provide evidence. Let's see it.

I've thought about this a lot overnight and tried very hard to step back and be a bit more objective and see if I could find some sympathy in me for Dr U.

But this is the thing that stuck out for me and I keep going back to in the Tribunal Tweets reports when JR was questioning Dr U:

DU - entered room and stepped where rucksack is in pic. As a rule I change in a corner facing the wall. I don't like people looking at me and also I'm conscious of the unpleasant attitudes some people have about trans people in changing rooms so I make sure I give no signals
DU - and it makes me feel safe.

(My emphasis)

So because you might have a different opinion, it's 'unpleasant' And S, she does not have the right to feel safe?

Roll on NC cross exam...

Dr U lost my sympathy when I realised that he was making notes of any perceived slight almost from the start. However that doesnt mean I dont still feel that he was utterly failed by his employer and by his department head. They should have kindly pointed out he was being an unprofessional fool and it would harm his career.

Absolutely @anyolddinosaur

Normal process for bullying is that person puts up with it for ages, then eventually gets advice to keep a diary.

Dr Upton was making notes of anyone who might potentially upset him in the future from day 1 of the job.

A comment on Twitter seems to suggest that NHS Fife said Sandie should raise the issue with Dr Upton in person. Can anyone back that up, is that true?

If it is true then that really changes things.

Yes. It’s a photo of SP labelled as a photo of BU. How do we let them know to change it?

I emailed [email protected]

@Anonymouse27

I could open this link further back, now I can't.

Perhaps it has been taken down for editing already 😊

These are pretty much my feelings too

Health board ‘withheld documents’ in trans doctor tribunal

www.thetimes.com/article/9b85663b-b602-4c25-afac-0981b6d8abb7?shareToken=b348c0bda622b137c6109928f997ee72

In The Times again today.

Cartoon on TwiX for which the caption is:

If women don't require single sex spaces to be safe from men, why do transwomen need access to women's single sex spaces to be safe from men?

https://x.com/velvethammer/status/1887972506172064239

£9,135.31

alexander-herschell-bell.muchloved.com

I need a hug 🫂

Yes I've also emailed. I mentioned how I hoped it was a genuine error rather then a deliberate act to mislead their readers.

This preemptive noting down of perceived slights does make it look as if DU was on the lookout for something to claim as harassment/transphobia/etc. it also struck me that DU has said about changing in the corner, facing away from everyone to help DU feel safe (I can't remember the exact wording) but DU requested to use the (open) female changing room instead of requesting a private place to change? It doesn't make sense to me.

A male is who wouldn't allow her private dignity.

From the Times article:
She said the Hate Incident document related to the changing room “dispute”, while the one titled Formal Complaint included allegations of “the resuscitation unit incident and what we’re going to call the ‘missing patient incident’, the patient who was triaged and left the hospital without being seen”, the tribunal heard.

This is important - it sounds like the only grounds for complaint about SPs professional practice were the resus incident where she asked DU to do patient obs and the incident where DU requested to see her about the patient she triaged and she said there was nothing to report - but looked at another member of staff while saying this. That's beyond flimsy to the point of ridiculous.

<hugs Igmum>

That’s not correct. She complained twice to line management. When nothing was done she said she would have to take it up with DU if there were a further incident. This was greeted with silence, so when there was a further incident, she spoke to DU directly. That led to DU’s complaint of a hate incident.

archive version: https://archive.is/lin1a