NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #10

[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 February 2025 and is expected to continue for 2 weeks. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on Thursday 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
Thread 7: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5270365-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-7
Thread 8: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271511-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-8
Thread 9: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271596-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-9

In fairness to KS, she isn’t a respondent and she’s attending voluntarily. She’s arranged her week to be available when they said they needed her and now with a few hours notice that’s shifted to a different day. That happens all too often but it’s still a total pain for anyone to work around, not least a Dr working shifts.

Do maintain your scepticism and keep testing and questioning your beliefs.

Unfortunately even if we wanted MN to be a radicalisation portal no fucker ever agrees on anything for long enough there's a lot of dissent and differing views on here. Even though they should all know by now that I'm always right and never wrong.

It was a confusing back and forth discussion. I was left with the impression that they will interpose Searle tomorrow on the basis that that is the only day she can appear in person and try and make up time with an early start and late finish. But there is still a possibility that they won't be finished with evidence before the end of the week and it might have to go part heard. But it really wasn't clear.

I honestly despair of this nonsense.

It's not complicated. If one man is 'officially' (this is the NHS, it's without doubt precedential) allowed to access women's changing rooms, they all are. It's the thin end of the wedge. It's not worthy of consideration, never mind worthy of serious discussion/reporting.

Taking over the asylum indeed!

is DU's cross examination over or does it continue tomorrow before KS is questioned?

I'm sure it was suggested today that there were a few trans staff at Fife. The questioning didn't get very far.

Do we know who is turning up for NHS Fife?

Or is that just as it happens

My understanding is DU in the morning with hope but no guarantee that KS will be the afternoon. Could be wrong though

It is definitely not over. NC said she is only about half way through. Whether it is before or after KS is questioned is unclear.

I do hope that NC can cut through the word salads tomorrow. It seems like DU is being given a free floor at times, which is only good if their account is found to be implausible.

Don't be too fair! She clearly behaved very inappropriately toward the claimant, and it is only Fife's "careless" failure to reveal half the documentation that saved her from possibly being named as a respondent.

Work Experience Student 1 Dr Brian/Frank/Beth Upton 0

The Editor writes.

This story was contributed by Gript Media’s work experience student, who has come to us on placement this week from a Dublin-based school.

What a headline!

Anyone work in psychiatry and able to say what the custom is re how patients refer to doctors in the speciality?

In my niche, patients and doctors (well consultants more than junior doctors) have ongoing relationships spanning months, sometimes years. And it's common for patients to call their consultant by their first name, or first and last name, rather than Dr lastname. So they'll say I saw Ben/ I see Ben Brown, more often then I'm under Dr Brown. Is that's the custom in psychiatry, or not?

What I'm getting at is, are patients who are so mentally unwell that they are receiving hospital psychiatric care, being expected/ required/ coerced into calling this man Beth? Are mentally ill patients being made to call an obvious man by a woman's name, when recieving psychiatric care?

@rebmacesrevda unfortunately not. The health effects are increasingly apparent. Their trans partner is not able to work full time and while it will take longer they seem to be heading the same way. Too late for their health to fully recover even if they detransition and they are probably sterile for life. Given the trans partner and supportive parents (after an initial reluctance) they would probably find it difficult to backtrack.

I hope your daughter continues to come back to reality and doesn't boomerang 🙏

Presumably the link is upthread but to save anyone else searching it's

https://gript.ie/im-biologically-female-claims-biologically-male-dr-at-uk-tribunal/

with the gorgeous headline "“I’m biologically female” claims biologically male Dr. at UK tribunal"

As I recall the discussion between the counsel and the panel, they didn't decide on a final running order of witnesses and they were going to discuss it further.

I'm so sorry. It's a scandal doctors do this to anyone

It came up the other day. There's 2 TiMs and 1 TiF apparently in the whole hospital.

Thanks @fanOfBen . I mean a young student on work experience schooling a male doctor about sex..... you couldn't make it up....... unless you were before a Scottish Employment Tribunal......

Surely the name doesn't present serious problems - there are lots of cases where a name is unisex, or given to males in one culture and females in another. I'm not finding it a problem to think of Upton as Beth, are you? (Genuine question, it hadn't occurred to me that others might find this a problem - I spend my life in an extremely multi-national setting and am very used to not being able to tell someone's sex from their name.) It's the pronouns and other stuff that's an issue, and that is surely a problem regardless of what the naming conventions in the specialty are.

I wonder if it's written by Brandubh who read out her 'I am not a dress' poem at LWS?

I think I'd feel more sympathetic if this aspect hadn't been deliberately withheld by NHS Fife's failure, as part of their failure to disclose fully. Searle herself will have been aware of what she did, no doubt filed by her bias/sympathy for DU's distress displayed to her/advised to her etc.

I get that it's not easy for a doctor to be available in these situations, but her testimony is going to be very important, especially as she allegedly went off 'half cocked' and seemingly declared SP as a bully/harasser to the entire ED team - people SP worked with - before any investigation or knowing what happened from SP's perspective.

She's part of the machinery that decided from the start that SP was the aggressor & DU the victim. No doubt partly because of Searle's take on things in response to DU's 'upset'.

Whatever disruption this causes - to Searle, her patients, the NHS trust etc. entirely NHS Fife's doing. They knew the terms of the court order on disclosure, they decided they could exclude KS's email declaring SP to be a 'bully' to the very dept she worked for, for reasons known only to them. To anyone else, this should have been disclosed waaaaaay earlier. Who knows. Maybe she would have been listed as a respondent of NC has seen it at an earlier stage.

Today Dr U said three trans people but no other trans identifying males, unless there was someone else and 'she just hasn't decided to tell me yet'.

Agreed.

I think there's this desire to 'do the right thing' for society. People want to be good people and do the right thing and that's actually the point you need to keep in mind.

I encourage people to not look at identity and instead look at behaviour. If that behaviour would be problematic coming from someone with a different identity, would you feel so desperate to support them?

Reminding people that equality means treating everyone as equals - to the same standards and to the same expectations - is crucial.

It shatters the facade.

Anyone openly saying that have no considered the concerns and emotions of others whilst simultaneously demanding that everyone be fully aware of their feelings and do everything they can to be respected, is not acting in a way which is consistent with equality principles.

When you start to ask, am I really being 'identity blind in how I interact with others' it makes you start questioning.

Everything about this belief is about controlling the narrative and controlling how you think so you behave in an 'approved manner'. This is not necessarily the same thing as behaving in a way that's good for society.

People who want to do the right thing become easy targets to be controlled, the second they stop questioning.

Asking questions is always a good and healthy thing to do on any subject.