NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #19

[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. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It seems that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July but it wasn't completely clear whether it might end a day or two later.

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 caused by 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
Thread 15: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273119-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-15
Thread 16: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273636-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-16
Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273827-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-17
Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274332-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-18

How the tide it turning........ floodgates are open in this latest article in the comments

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/14/nhs-nurse-bullied-concerns-trans-doctor/

The question of DU sex and the relevance came up yesterday, was it just after the judge said ED couldn’t answer as she’s only a nurse.
JR said it was would need an expert witness to determine.🤡
J said it was relevant to the case.
Im wondering if this exchange gives NC the go ahead to call an expert to determine DU sex on the record in the court.

You're correct that did come out today and has been reported in The Times and the Evening Standard as well as in Scottish papers.

This case is shining a light on similar things to concerns in the US about wastage and gender identity issues.

It's fascinating to see play out, but it also is fucking frightening on many other levels.

It's clearly a systematic problem.

I just think, for every Sandie,

There's a bunch of women who have quit their jobs completely rather than raise complaint.
There's a bunch of women who feel intimidated and that they have lost their dignity but don't feel they complain about the situation for a multiple of reasons.
There's a bunch of women who have been actively managed out in some way in subtle indirect ways.
There's a bunch of women who have actively been harassed and sacked for trying to stand up for themselves.
There's a bunch of women who won't got into certain work sectors now because they think the work culture is so bad.
There's a bunch of women who will self exclude from various services and facilities because they have a right to because they don't want to be put into the position of feeling uncomfortable or not having consent respected in the way they intend.

The whole point is the invisibility of women.

Sandie is visible now. She wasn't. And she isn't alone in that invisibility.

And that's what the case really represents.

We KNOW this isn't an isolated case.

I'd love to see a link to this peaking please?

Good grief, NINETEEN threads and we are only part way through 😱

Thank you to everyone who has posted and helping to explain some of the finer points.

Love your username 😍

I have written to my local hospital to clarify the terminology I would need to use to see a clinician who was the same sex as me if required.

I pointed out that this tribunal had made it clear that asking for a female doctor could clearly result in receiving a male doctor. I offered the suggestion "I'd like to see a doctor of the class of humans whose bodies are arranged around the production of large gametes who agrees that they are of the class of humans whose bodies are arranged around the production of large gametes" but suggested that might be a tad clunky for the average patient...

I'm looking forward to seeing what they say.

'm glad anonymity for Dr. U was not granted, but o was wondering what would be different? Would we have had TT? Day by day - minute by minute - account of the proceedings? Journalists reporting from court? Or it's just his name being kept secret?

Only just started on this thread, and I know someone else provided an image for this, but there's always room for another drunk policy llama or 4!

"KnottyAuty · Today 18:31

duc748 · Today 18:26
a drunk policy llama is driving the bus
Crying out for some visuals, that! 😃

@Boiledbeetle can you assist with some visuals because I can only work the text AI as I'm not a computer person you see?"

I think the NHS wanted the whole thing to be secret. Wonder why....?

NC pressed ED to describe SP's role as a floor coordinator. She was basically the one who went round making sure that things got done and staff were deployed to where they were needed when it was busy.

Which pretty much means that if she left one cubicle to go elsewhere it was almost certainly something that would have been normal and usual, in keeping with her coordinator role.

And more importantly, if the person in charge of coordination, who had never failed the department in 30 years, was now abandoning patients willy nilly, then it wasn't just that patient at risk but potentially the entire shift that was no longer being coordinated. There would have been carnage if things got busy but the coordinator was off sulking in a corner.

Also, given that she was described as stern, and vocal, and responsible for keeping order on busy nightshifts, you'd think that in a large department there would almost certainly be people who had been told off at some point and harboured a grudge who would be delighted to grass her up if she really did start causing problems herself. But they had nothing.

I don't think anyone at all would have believed the patient safety 'angle' was anything more than an 'angle' that KS and DU wanted to push.

If you want to make life easier for yourself, and give Starmer a steer, you could put to him the question that Rosie Duffield put to the government in the House:

https://x.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1889308250622882285

Great post. It's this exactly. We don't know the countless women disadvantaged for men who want to pretend they're women. It will be in the thousands.

The women put off even applying for a job in the NHS because their religion requires single sex changing / toilets and they know they won't get it here. They know they'll be bullied out if they even ask.

The women who've been bullied out

The women who self exclude from medical care because they know everything - wards, treatment - is mixed sex and they have no hope of actually getting single sex. Because they know about the rape that was denied and the ridiculously high level of assaults against women and girls on NHS wards.

We're told the NHS is on its knees, well it would be a lot better off if everyone wasn't exhausted by cognitive dissonance and doublespeak and walking on eggshells for men like Upton and millions wasn't pissed away on ridiculous DEI enforcing cognitive dissonance and doublespeak yet somehow doing NOTHING about violence against women and girls on the wards.

It's infuriating as a taxpayer. It's wrong on every level.

It’s part of the application from NC. Given that BU relied on his contemporaneous notes heavily in testimony it opened the door to this request so that NC can test the credibility of BU against phone metadata. Given that she is also, I think, asking BMA for any record they have if convos with BU the phone would be useful in pinning gown dates of those convos which BU failed to provide. NC is also trying to establish dates of patient care incident claims and the phone will be useful to that. They won’t be granted free rein with the phone but I think they could succeed with set parameters. But I’m no lawyer.

Would a FOI request manage to find out it if any other women have been managed out for complaining about transwomen in female changing rooms?

NC would normally have limited a chance in making those kinds of applications but the non-disclosures, and in particular the apparent materiality of the non-disclosures, have given her powerful leverage to apply for orders that will get her relevant information that has been withheld or that needs to be provided to give Peggie a fair chance at a just outcome.

If Kate Searle keeps hold of her job long enough for it to matter, then the July hearing is the worst possible time for her. She is the clinical lead for the annual clinical fellow programme that brings in up to 18 speciality doctors who do a 12 month contract with them. And it starts at the beginning of August when doctors in training begin their new rotation.

So if KS maintains her current role, she has to try to recruit those doctors to the programme over the next few months, with the shameful knowledge hanging in the air that she is now named as a co-respondent at the ET, alongside the Class of '24 Prize Clown Upton. And then she spends a humiliating fortnight in court, and returns to face the new cohort at their induction, all while waiting for the judgment. And she brought so much of it on herself.

It's hard to see how that's survivable, in career terms. Except that they can't sack everyone because A&E never closes.

Is it worth creating a separate thread with some suggested message templates and people to send them to, to make it easy for people to have maximum impact over some of the points raised?

Also, there was a poem a few threads back which I thought was really impactful but now I can't find it. It was about men encroaching on women. Could anyone point me towards it? Thank you.

And a huge thanks to everyone who has been sorting and contributing these threads. I have learnt a lot.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5273561-thread-for-discussing-how-women-can-ask-nhs-for-female-hcps?reply=142136920

https://irischild.blogspot.com/2017/08/he-tells-her-after-wendy-cope.html?m=1

@hild0 and @DontTellMeWhat2Do have you been listening to Tanya de Grunwald's podcast series "This Isn't Working"? She's raised issues that have come up in this case, like how people in DEI roles are often ignorant about employment law. She argues that instead of helping organisations avoid discrimination there's a lot of unsound and badly managed DEI around sex & gender that's getting organisations embroiled in tribunals for discrimination which they lose.

I'm sure she's following this case and I expect her next episode will be sizzling!

That podcast is a new one for me and I'll be having a look.

I think a forensic analysis of DU's phone would be R1 and R's worst nightmare as so many issues are hanging in the air - especially in light of his general forgetfulness and memory lapses relation to disclosure

• the "notes" - how many people, when, where and whether they were altered or beefed up (didn't ED say that the statement submitted to the board was not the same one she saw?)
• messages between DU and other witnesses - especially KS - seems as though DU was pushing hard for early action against SP and KS was fanning the flames by declaring SP guilty before the New Year
• the BMA "advice" - who did DU contact and when? How did he achieve this between dec 24-27 when BMA was likely closed?
• Did he message other people about his "witness statement" and did he alter it subsequent to their advice? In particular did someone tell him that "patient care concerns" would be taken more seriously?
• Has DU been discussing the case while giving evidence or reading about it contrary to the ET's directives? He let slip yesterday that he might have been when he talked about being the victim in relation to terrible things people were writing about him on social media? But how would he know if he was following the tribunal's directions?

Who has she got in Scotland? The SNP and Greens? I loathe Trump but a stopped clock is correct twice a day and perhaps she likes his views on gender woo.

I knew you wouldn't let us down,Beetle! 😃