NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #15

[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 gave evidence from Thursday 6 February to Wednesday 12 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
Thread 14: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5272939-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-14

The trouble is the GMC have him down as being female on their registers. How could a committee sanction him for saying he is female when he is recorded as being female. They would have to sanction themselves at the same time. The GMCs rules that allow men to self ID as female need to be challenged. It’s a big fat mess.

@StellaAndCrow

I feel this was JR paving the way to demonstrate DU was "sacred", showing him as in a vulnerable position, or at least that was the attempt. Minimising damages perhaps?

@Signalbox

The sanctions we were talking about where his complete ignorance of basic biology and how that impacts patient care, and brings the medical profession into disrepute.

I've not been active on these threads, name change now due to my job. I've been watching here and via the video link until it got fucked by the IT issues/wooly jumper brigade.

Holy fuck what an absolute terrifying mess.

I quit smoking 11 years ago and bought a pack of cigarettes this morning. Absolutely shocking misogynistic content of this case not to mention the incompetence from every participant respondent.

I'm tempted to go full TERF at work after this, I'm sure I'd suffer for it, but how the fuck can this be real.

Perhaps some merely "identify as" doctors.

Reddit will however be skewed by it's systematic campaign to silence all dissenting voices on this matter.

And another states 'Dr Upton is a female doctor'. I can't say it gives me any faith in the medical sector in the UK if actual doctors believe this.

And, it's just yet another facet of medical misogyny.

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/328/women-and-equalities-committee/news/204316/medical-misogyny-is-leaving-women-in-unnecessary-pain-and-undiagnosed-for-years/

Women being gaslit, dismissed and now expected to play along with outright lies in order to validate males pretending to be women.

Yikes at the creep who says consent is a massive Pandora's box that shouldn't be opened and that same-sex care requests shouldn't be 'pandered' to 😬

That was a slightly depressing read.

Please don't smoke. If you do, you may end up needing a doctor 😬

It's a bit tenuous, although I can see why you make the inference. Mao had a grip on absolute power at that time, and people were executed, imprisoned, tortured or exiled if they did anything seen to be against the Party line. The line that switched from one direction to another without warning, mind.

The tactics used by the TRA mob are more akin to Orwell's 1984, in my view. Maybe we're just at an earlier stage, and the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward are yet to come?

There's also a worryingly large number of drs who don't appear to believe in patient centric care, informed consent or who have a good grasp of the difference between gender (feelings) and sex (fact).

Just reading that! Some shockingly bad doctors in there.

I sincerely believe this Dr should not be allowed anywhere near the public let along in the capacity of a medical professional. He's obviously completely insane and a danger to vulnerable people.

I'd have enormous objections to him treating my young or elderly family members.

So scared he put his big girl pants on and went back into the female changing rooms on 28th of December for a bit more harassment. That assertion cannot possibly fly.

@rebmacesrevda good point, I could end up needing the care of a doctor who doesn't know what a woman is, what consent it, or what patient care means.

RIP NHS.

@Bannedontherun

Not necessarily going to use scared for the changing room incident, but to use it to minimise how badly his allegation handling and reporting was - I think that was more the time period as it's clear protocol has not been followed in many different ways.

Risking being outed but also past caring as I know this relative does use mumsnet, said relative delivers training across the medical sector, stuff such as first aid, moving and handling, equality and diversity etc.

This relative was a staunch feminist growing up so I couldn't believe it when they genuinely started touting pink brain and blue brain stuff. "There's evidence that the brain is different in people with gender dysphoria" well, yeah, trauma is known to change the brain. You see it frequently mentioned in studies pertaining to ND folks who inherently have grown up in a life that traumatises them.

But they genuinely do believe that there's sufficient evidence to support that trans people's brains are different and don't match their bodies and therefore some people might genuinely be born in the wrong sex.

And they train this. 😬

"DU: that she would use my refusal to agree with her harassment as a challenge, to organise moves to get me moved from that ward, the department."

This all relies on a belief that SP has a personal vendetta against him because she is transphobic, not a completely reasonable wish to use a single sex changing room per the 1992 regulations. I wonder if either the BMA or NHS Fife ever attempted to reassure him on this point.

I had a argument with DH this morning about why on earth Fife NHS and DrU had the same defence team. This was before a number of this rather strange exchanges that don't look very favourable for Upton at all.

He thought that they couldn't have separate defence teams for some reason relating to liability even though Upton is a named individual. My point was a massive conflict of interests which wasn't in either party's interest.

He then went off on some weird argument that perhaps there were people at Fife NHS who felt that Upton was such a massive pain in the arse who they otherwise wouldn't be able to get rid of, that it would be better to go down this route in order to throw Upton under the bus and to force the NHS to actually do something to resolve this shit. And this the decision was a deliberate act by frustrated individuals fed up with having to deal with this bollocks.

I thought DH was talking out of his arse completely because of there was a conflict of interest you should be able to have separate defences and it was ridiculous to say that NHS bods were deliberately trying to sabotage this and orchestrate a win for Sandie.

I have to say after today, I was beginning to think DHs bollocks argument actually has a hell of a lot of merit.

Until I remembered Hanlon's razor about never attributing something like this to malice or some master plan and instead to remember the NHS is full of people who are simply capable of this level of total incompetent. And that probably why we have this case in the first fucking place.

I really hope if Sandie wins there's resignations higher up the food chain at NHS Fife. But I suspect if Sandie wins it'll go the way ERCC did with people trying to brazen it out.

That supposedly doctors' reddit is quite disturbing though possibly realistic. At times within psychiatric care I have explicitly requested to be seen by a woman which is common. Especially when I've been struggling to disclose something that has happened to me in the past or I am struggling to feel safe in the present. Conversely I've had no issues with a male physio prodding my bum.

But it doesn't surprise me. Because of a failure where CMHT hadn't recorded someone had spoken to me already I had a male nurse unexpectedly turn up in my bedroom on a Sunday morning! I was so terrified I just said what I needed to say to get them out! I spoke to the team manager and asked no men please and they dismissively said "they'd try to accommodate..." but had a responsibility for my welfare (!)

Without wanting to sound rude, many trans women and lets assume most men have balls and penises don't they? Nobody stares at them but sometimes you just notice. I could quite understand maybe not being sure if someone is female or maybe not paying much attention until part way through a discussion or if they'd moved to see me closer. That could be re traumatising for quite a few women whose trauma relates to abuse of authority, like Sandie.

That's not to say I or at least some others wouldn't agree to see a trans woman doctor when asking for a female doctor. But if I had asked I would expect them to say "yes I am woman, just for clarity I am trans." Especially if they still had male body parts and or a obviously male presence. But in practice how would the other staff even know if they were trans or not?!

But they genuinely do believe that there's sufficient evidence to support that trans people's brains are different and don't match their bodies and therefore some people might genuinely be born in the wrong sex.

The really amazing thing about this phenomenon is it manages to produce female brains in male bodies that act exactly like male brains. All behaviour patterns are statistically male. So weird.

Please chuck the cigarettes. Nothing about this case will be improved by you self-harming.

Welcome! I peaked about 2 years ago now, it's bonkers isn't it??? The more you find out the worse it gets though, sorry to say.

We really are living in the upside down.

I'm from Scotland as well, so I feel even more royally fucked.

Drink? The bluestocking is open! (Search for the thread on FWR and you'll find lots of fun there and a chance to take your brain away from the madness of it all)

Does this dickhead use an identifiable name? Given this would be in breech of social media use and bringing the profession into disrepute under NHS policy / GMC policy....

Chuck them my way.

I could absolutely murder a smoke.

If it’s anything like the fitness to practice hearings you would have to have good reason (be properly sick) to wriggle out of attending something like this. Being signed off with stress and anxiety from work wouldn’t work. If you had a medical emergency (diagnosed and evidenced) or serious medical condition (diagnosed and evidenced) you might be able to get things postponed until after you’d finished treatment or they might make special allowances like being able to attend via video link etc. People pull all sorts of stunts to try and get out of hearings and there is case law relating to such events. Being stressed because you are facing legal action is completely normal. You just have to get a grip and get on with it.