NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #7

[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: https://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

Thread 6: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5269635-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-6

As I mentioned in connection with NHS England, I don't think FWR would be surprised at the number of senior people with trans children who are in positions to allow them to champion ideology with (public) funds and without considering PSED (where relevant).

It's what Goodwin described in his piece about the epistemic class.

For much of the last half century, the new elite, whose families often descend from the professional and managerial classes, benefitted far more than others from the shift toward a university-based meritocracy —a system which has increasingly whittled down the definition of ‘success’ to mean having a degree from the right university.
Shaped by their privileged family backgrounds, their educational qualifications, and their much greater ‘cultural capital’ —gained from their more immersive experiences in the Oxbridge and Russell Group college system— the new elite hoovered up most of the gains from Britain’s embrace of hyper-globalisation and a political economy which was rebuilt around them, which both demanded and rewarded their skills.
They’ve benefitted culturally, too. After flooding into the creative, cultural, knowledge and public sector institutions, becoming a new “epistemic class” which creates, filters and determines what is or what is not acceptable or desirable within the national conversation, the new elite watched the prevailing culture be completely reshaped around their far more socially liberal values, tastes, political priorities, and interests.
Increasingly, when they’ve looked out at the institutions and what they create -the television programmes, films, adverts, books, museums, galleries, columns, and the national conversation more broadly- they’ve seen their worldview staring back at them while millions of others struggle to recognise their worldview at all.
This is why the rise of Nigel Farage, Brexit, Trump, and Boris were so visibly traumatic and bewildering for the new elite. Until then, this culturally isolated and politically insulated group had largely had everything their own way.

https://www.mattgoodwin.org/p/rise-of-the-new-elite

Thank you @Harassedevictee

I wonder how things proceed at that point? I imagine any sort if delay or postponement would ratchet up costs for all parties, plus the issues of availability if all the legal teams and court space etc in the future.

And where would the responsibility lie - someone somewhere along the line should have much better oversight of the degree of compliance with the judicial order and disclosures and of how their case appeared to even a neutral observer if it had socking great gaps in it.

And what happened to SP and DU in the meantime - do they remain off sick and suspended respectively?

The Observer article is so undeniably clear-cut, more and more sunlight. So heartening to see the donation total pass the £10k mark. Over a 1/4 of their usual yearly fundraising total in one weekend. They're probably thinking "shit, what are we going to do with all this money?!!!"😁

I hope whatever they do with it they feature Alex Bell's name on it somehow, and acknowledge his family.

Thanks to hoteltango and nauticant for sharing the Rebel Ada thread about the kidney transplant - I would never have found it. Very much worth a read even though not directly relevant to this thread.

They (the charity, edit for clarity) have given some scholarships to nurses, it was said somewhere in these threads - so maybe rename one or more the Alex Bell scholarship(s) and invest the money to cover it/them.

@Justabaker thanks. I’ve only been a witness in England so appreciate it may be different.

@NotMaroonButRaspberry Costs are likely to increase. I have no idea how this will eventually end up but for SP I want a quick but right resolution.

As we often say for SP the process is the punishment. DU, I have a tiny amount of sympathy as I think they are out of their depth.

I suspect DU may have been overly reliant on being teamed up with NHS Fife and not taken proper independent legal advice. Being caught up in the "being supported" and "we've got your back" vibe might turn out to be a very significant risk.

As we often say for SP the process is the punishment. DU, I have a tiny amount of sympathy as I think they are out of their depth.

Indeed. On the most generous interpretation of DU's actions and evidence, DU was deeply traumatised by having a nurse fail to make eye contact with him, fail to wave back at him and walk out of the changing room when he was present. After she made the Isla Bryson reference, and said she didn't want to be in the same changing room as him, he cried copiously because no one had ever spoken to him like that before.

This is someone who didn't want to use the men's changing room because he wouldn't feel safe. And now, it turns out, he also felt unsafe in the women's changing room.

That presents quite a dilemma for any prospective employer, doesn't it? Unsafe in the men's changing room, unsafe in the women's changing room. If I were an NHS board, I wouldn't be rushing to take him on.

<shuffles rather awkwardly>

Ermmmmmmmmmm.. Ahhh...ermmmmm. Ssssssssshit!

Boiled beetle may be a rather large female beetle - or may just identify as a female. I dont stalk mumsnetters so I dont know.

Interesting. I didn't actually consider this.

Yes, they offer two bursaries, maybe there'll be enough to invest to allow a third, named in memory of SP's father? I don't know how much capital you need to produce enough interest for a bursary, but there might be enough for an annual book/travel grant.

I need the 😮 response.

I would think we've all been in these 'flow' situations when our experience and training kicks in and we all become cogs to ensure a good outcome. It doesn't matter who the other people are or how we feel about them if they're doing their job, we're all just cogs.

Having been in a rescue scenario, communication can be very short and to the point and in other situations probably considered rude . There's no time to focus on either social niceties or on one upmanship.

Big boned! I'm a big boned beetle.

I'm bereft after reading that account. I would hope all the professionals involved entered a Datix, and, if not, why not?

Both women might have died. Both might have lost the precious, precious suitably matched kidney after who knows how long of waiting for one. Whether it's living donor or a cadaver kidney, these are costly therapies that can transform the quality of life for the recipients. And families may have consented to the donation in good faith that the kidney would be treated with the full value and respect such a donation embeds.

For the potential risks involved, I'd suggest that both of the special caste members in question could have been booked into a single/double room in a hotel, with 24/7 cover by staff. This would still be cheaper than the financial risks those women might lose a kidney, their lives, or need to be treated for systemic infection and possibly sepsis (with necessary admission to ICU and then post-ICU rehab).

I get it. This is a system to be gamed to some people. Who wouldn't want a private room to themselves, if all you had to do was to chant the magic words and nobody could contradict you?

Those women's lives and their kidneys were put at jeopardy because overlooking the harms would have been explainable (assuming the case is as presented). The harms of this ideology.

What my mind does keep wandering back to incredulously is that NHS Fife made a massive thing of stating that SP bringing this case was "vexatious and unnecessary."

This was reported widely as their take on it all at the beginning of last week.

-Sandie Peggie was bringing an unnecessary and vexatious case.

-Sandie Peggie was choosing to misgender DU in court and Sandie Peggie was choosing to hurt and offend DU by calling them a man (he is a man).

-Sandie Peggie was a bully for trying to refer to DU as they preferred when at work with them but not continuing the pretence when he was out of earshot.

-Sandie Peggie can't really have been that bothered about needing to change clothes soaked with menstrual flooding and not being given privacy and space to do so even when she asked for it, because she didn't explicitly discuss that she'd bled through her clothes with her parents over Christmas lunch (JRs satisfied "aha" at this was ridiculous)

And so on and so on.

The lack of any inkling from them as to how this was going to pan out, that they started this case in this horribly personal and spiteful way is just incomprehensible to any normal person.

Imagine suspending someone for months without any documentation to provide the reasons and then chastising them for bringing a case you feel is "unnecessary."

@MarieDeGournay I assumed the bursaries were small ones as their annual income is only 38k.

@Boiledbeetle My apologies - will generously proportioned do?

Whoops I blinked again and we're 2 threads along since.

Thanks for keeping these going.

What do you mean for sp the process is the punishment?

She didn’t make a reference to Isla Bryson. Even Upton has admitted that. He made the assumption that a perfectly reasonable comment compared him to Bryson (which actually wouldn’t be an unfair comparison anyway as both disrespected single sex spaces)

@BeaTwix
Re finding and posting about the Alex Bell fund - it was a good thing you did there. Thank you.

It means that even in the event of a positive outcome for SP, it wouldn't compensate for the awful stress and worry that she has gone through between being suspended and (we hope!) vindicated.

@Lunde What you've written below reads to me like a textbook Cognitive Behaviour Therapy exercise to get someone thinking about how they respond to others; could there be another interpretation?, do they regularly ascribe malice when it might just be circumstance?, might looking at things differently make life better? Not removing personal responsibility but this is another way society, led by the TRAs, is massively letting trans people down by encouraging them to take offence at anything that stops short of constant affirmation.

'I also seem to remember at one of the A&E incidents that DU didn't know why SP left. Didn't know whether SP was dealing with other patients etc. SP was the triage nurse for A&E, DU did not reflect over the automatic ascribing of harassment to this situation rather than assuming that SP was really busy as most people would. Fife didn't seem to question this either and just accepted DU's version.'