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

Sorry CapabilityBrownsHaHa, I don't know the answer, but I love your username😂

I think if it were even slightly possible that a person might be pregnant that must arise in the clinical examination regardless of the gender ID

Theodore wanted to take down the one woman who saw through him and was prepared to confront him with factual reality - he wanted her out of the way.
NHS Fife acquiesced and fawned to his demands without following due procedure or conducting a proper investigation.
The wheels are starting to come off of their defence, facilitated by the softly spoken know-it-all doctor.
NHS Fife is the real focus, not Dr Delusion.

Thanks for your sterling work ickky

He really is an insufferably arrogant man.

Perhaps that would be a relief to her!

Yes, that's what he seems to be saying now. In which case how will NHS Fife justify suspending Sandie Peggie, if there was no actual patient safety concern?

He could argue that, if he had sought advice at the time, and on the day of, the incident. As no discussion with seniors took place until weeks later he hasn't got a leg to stand on.

Am I right that future witnesses e.g. KS are not allowed to hear the evidence so far? So technically KS should not know what Upton has been saying?

Re DrU's interactions with the BMA, he seems very evasive about whether he had phone calls with them "he might have phoned me".

We know that the BMA has a significant contingent of TRAs. Enough that they were able to win a vote to oppose the Cass report.

I wonder if DrU has a mate or mates in the BMA that are advising him "informally". I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that he'd had off-the-record discussions (about Sandie being a witch).

Hence his difficulty with evidencing their discussions and advice, and attempts to obfuscate and not disclose communications.

He has been an employment judge since 2020. However, he may never have encountered a witness so determined to say that black is white before.

Don't have entire GMC code memorised. Assume similar but I don't know.

Didn’t cross Upton’s mind, in preparing for this ET, that a sound grasp of the doctors’ professional code of conduct might come in useful?

Yes they cannot view it until their testimony is over.

Yes

It'll be interesting to see whether the Judge gives more weight to DU's perceptions of a colleague slightly avoiding him (which don't match anyone else's perceptions so far, as far as we can tell and seem pretty pathetic grounds to suspend someone) compared to his response to Gillian Philip's perceptions and feelings in the wake of in fact extremely traumatic life events.

I know! Just check your phone log, smarty-pants!

IANAL but someone posted minutes earlier from the Fife internal ?Workforce Governance Committee of 15/2/24 where the incident was already logged as a hate crime. But as of 17/2 email referred to today they were still chasing DU for a written complaint. So all the things that are going to emerge today should have been available to nhsFife's solicitors before JR was appointed. I don't think there will be any surprises for their Board, just horror that it turned out this way.

Hasn't an R1 witness been withdrawn due to long term sickness. That will be another interesting part of the story that we may never hear about.

NC 22/1 your email to ED saying you are still waiting for BMA. How did BMA respond to q re clarifying process.
DU If no email from BMA re that, I presume they phoned
DU I have no recollection of how BMA responded,
NC any recollection of what BMA response was
DU no

NC You finally give ED your response. Attachment. Something has happened for you to feel ready to send ED doc. You have been stalling while waiting for BMA advice. What was advice from BMA.
DU Don't recall BMA replied or what advice was, re my previous answer.

It's pretty rare to phone BMA for advice - I'm sure that I would remember my interactions with them, and what their advice was. Hey, I might even have made a note!

This is very similar in my view to some of the complicated technical evidence in the PO enquiry when the luckless Gareth Jenkins was droning interminably on giving evidence, and the peerless Mr Beer wasn’t quite on top of all the relevant computery facts enough to perform a slam-dunk (though he did superbly nevertheless)

Big-smarty-girl-pants, thank you.

DU words when questioned by JR (his own side) was that SP’s unusual communication created the “potential” for patient safety concerns. It was already a bit of nothingburger before NC even started

My impression is that they are all more or less (!) agreed that it is very unlikely that they can get through all the witnesses this week. That said, they haven't reached a final conclusion and are likely to have ongoing chats every so often about how long DU's slippery weasel evasions this is all taking. I'm not the only one to have noticed that JR is interrupting a lot less than yesterday, possibly because she realises that an adjournment now is much more likely and would be to NC's/SP's advantage.

Under the circumstances I think it would be exceptionally unfair of the judge to impose a guillotine on DU's evidence, but then, he (the judge) is obviously getting a bit antsy...

Did we all appreciate Upton's helpful correction of NC with the date once it had turned midnight?

And it is not even "technically"

Yes, in order to comply with new IMER regs we have to ask both men and women if they could be pregnant on the surgery checklist and radiographers need to before X-rays

https://www.sor.org/learning-advice/professional-body-guidance-and-publications/documents-and-publications/policy-guidance-document-library/inclusive-pregnancy-status-guidelines-for-ionising

NC You gave clear evidence re what happened on xmas eve 2023, inc details of order going to toilet/washing hands etc. But unable to tell tribunal whether you got further advice from BMA or what advice was.