NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #14

[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 was expected to continue for 2 weeks although once it was in to the second week it was looking like this would not happen. The hearing commenced with Sandie Peggie giving evidence. Dr Beth Upton started giving evidence on Thursday 6 February.

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

However, as a result of problems with the livestreaming, apparently, as a result of a very large number of observers, remote public access to the hearing was suspended on Tuesday 11 February. It was suggested that it might be reinstated at some point but don't count on it.

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
Thread 10: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5271723-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-10
Thread 11: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272046-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-11
Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272276-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-12
Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272398-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-13

Yep

I hope more support for SP comes about from other staff at Fife as a result of all this.

If anyone is actually there, would love to hear what is the atmosphere in there today and if DU squirming at all ?

My experience of all level of judges at ET's, EAT's, The Court of Appeal and Family Courts is you just don't know what he is thinking and you shouldn't either - only when the Judgment is handed down will his thoughts become clear.

In the Nursing world, citing a ‘patient safety incident’ then saying that you didn’t report it is the biggest own goal ever.

It can’t be any different in medicine?

Why would she want that?

They've let her rot for months.

I THINK the patient safety angle is that on his reading, SP was refusing to interact with him. His evidence for this is that she didn't acknowledge a wave he gave her, and she replied to a person who had asked her a question, rather than looking at DU who she should have known was where the question originally came from. AND, (separately) that she left a room, asking him to take observations, rather than stayed.

Because DU interprets both of these interactions as having deliberate malicious intent to ignore him/not be in the same room as him, he extrapolates this into IF she did this in a different situation, it could have a safety issue.

I don't think that R1 or R2 is attempting to show that either of these did have an actual safety issue.

Have I got that right?

“In an urgent sit patient safety trumps everything after individual and team safety”

In an emergency situation, surely the individual safety point relates to risk of death and physical injury - eg the off duty female police officer who was killed by a vehicle after stopping to assist a roadside breakdown.

It doesn’t relate to co-worker made eye contact / didn’t make eye contact / wants the single sex changing rooms to be single sex and that caused injury to my ego therefore patients are unsafe if she’s on duty when I am.

Interesting questions and answers this morning regarding DrU's selective reporting of Sandie's behaviour.

According to the transcript, he describes that on the one time she worked with him in resus, she "behaved oddly" in that she asked him to take obs (!!! I mean WTF, I still can't believe that this was even worth more than a passing thought)

However, NC has made clear that he has worked with Sandie in resus on at least one other occasion (and all was fine)

NC Turn to FC. You say on the one occasion we treated a resus patient tog was when she asked me to take obs
DU That was the only occasion when she asked me to do something odd.
NC But you say, on the one occasion.. and then you say what happened.

She also goes on to make the point that it seems he was intentionally not giving a specific date so that the trust could not look for corroboration, which didn't exist.

NC SP can remember working with you on snickers bar. You don't want it to be that patient cos pins incident to Halloween and you didn't want to give AG precise date.

Anyone else considering writing a gmc complaint about Dr Uptons lack of urgency when reporting patient safety concerns?

They won’t have been allowed to speak to her, I’ve experienced this.

thought this was an interesting response

NC I said if that was true SP would need to be suspended at once. She'd be a danger to patients and poss FtP
Du there are degrees of danger. Poss called away to something more serious. But this is someone who hasn't shared a space with me before. Need to speak to so

at the time of this alleged incident, Sandie had not said anything to Upton and there had been no incident in changing room. All that had happened was that on 2 occasions she had left changing room when he entered. One of those times she was in process of actually getting changed when he entered so it must have been horrible for her.

there are no other patients incidents mentioned by him that involved her not sharing a space.

so it can only be the changing room. He is saying she is unprofesssional and compromised patient safety because she has not shared a changing room with him.

i literally can’t comprehend the levels of narcissim

I've inferred the same. The "patient safety" risk appears to be entirely hypothetical.

That exchange:

NC Turn to FC. You say on the one occasion we treated a resus patient tog was when she asked me to take obs
DU Only occasion when she asked me to do something odd.
NC But you say, on the one occasion.. and then you say what happened.
DU Then i worded awkwardly,. Don't recall working with SP on snickers patient so I didn't mention it - poss cos SP didn't do anything unusual or hostile then. NC Y'day went through chronology. 24/12 CR incident told Pitt

So he didn't even notice Sandie unless she was doing something "wrong".

Judge Judy would be telling him to just answer the questions, no 'editorialising'

That snideness and 'cleverality' works best when it gets some kind of irritated response. NC isn't taking the bait, so his snideness is all the more obvious. She is wisely playing his nastiness with a straight bat - yes yes I know, the bat is saying how dare I assume it is heterosexual😄

Argh sorry didn’t realise. Can you please report me and help to get rid of other replies ?

NC is laying the path to KC who din not report a critical incedent

I don't think that's fair at all. They won't have been allowed/able to speak to her, they would have been afraid of losing their jobs/becoming part of this shitshow, they wouldn't have wanted to jeopardise the case in some way by saying/doing the wrong thing.
She clearly does have tons of support.

Is there an actual type of amnesia that allows sufferers to recall some events in forensic detail but have no memory at all of others?

Thank you @ickky

I am entirely with JR and the judge on the NMC vs GMC rules though. (Sorry NC). Legally, it is ridiculous to be quoting a rules for a different professional body at him. However similar one may suppose them to be. And finding the right ones isn't difficult!

And this is a stark illustration of how seriously he took the horrific changing room misgendering, compared to how he reported patient safety concerns just . . . whenever.

DU Also on 25/12 cos midnight
NC Also at that time you made note on phone in carpark
DU Early xmas day
NC 3am you sent email to KS copy Sr P. Also around then sent an email to BMA. Then BMA on 29 and phone call. 3 Jan sent draft FC to BMA

I don't think he has ever been in charge of a Tribunal like this and it shows.
Operation: WatchMyOwnBack.

Transnesia?

So he didn't know doctors should raise patient safety concerns? Even though he kindly explained to the tribunal what the Datix (spelling?) is used for so clearly does know