NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #26

[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 last 2 weeks. However, after 2 weeks it was not complete and it adjourned part-heard. It is planned that it will resume on 16 July and the last day of evidence will be 28 July and then there will be 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing will end on 30 July.

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 doubtful whether pubilc access for remote viewing would be reinstated but recent developments (as of mid May) suggest that this might actually become available again.

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
Thread 19: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5274571-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-19
Thread 20: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5275782-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-20
Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5276925-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-21
Thread 22: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5280174-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-22
Thread 23: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5285690-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-23
Thread 24: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5301295-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-24
Thread 25: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5318518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-25

I imagine it's not about the money for a gender neutral changing room@Conxis, the problem with that option is it would have meant telling Dr Upton 'no, you can't change in the ladies' changing room'.

Yes and their bonkers own policy didn’t allow that.
How they couldn’t have foreseen this policy would end up in court is beyond me! It was only a matter of time

Presbyterian canon, Anglican canon - either way she was a big shot, right?😁

Ba dum tsss

Fife don't need gender neutral changing rooms. Dr Upton is male, like all the other male HCPs. He wouldn't stand out in any way in a men's changing room*. You can't justify the expense of building or adapting a new changing room purely to accommodate someone's internal subjective identity.

*And even if he did, even if he had had full GRS, that would be his choice. Special accommodations are for people with disabilities or actual medical problems.

Thanks, I was thinking CoS doesn't have any highrachey (spelling sorry) structure but didn't have time to look up what church she was part of.

Yip the trouble is they were being guided by ScotGov. And I've no doubt they'll be more claims to come.

How long before some prisoner gets her claim in for being forced to shower or share a cell with a bloke in a dress?

In the USA one female prisoner who made a complaint against a male prisoner in the women's prison lost her chance for parole.

I don't know whether this would be an issue for UK prisoners but if it is any female prisoner making a complaint would be taking a huge risk.

Not really, just means she has a post linked with the running of the Diocesan Cathedral - there appear to be five canons in the cathedral chapter, plus another five honorary canons. This is out of a pretty small pool.

https://standrews.anglican.org/whos-who/

So now it's a newly-minted University Health Board that will be in the news for next few weeks. Not sure that's what St Andrews would have bargained for....

They haven't given any instructions about this. I'd just be very careful to be sure to have complete confidence in anyone else watching along on our links, as they have our contact details in the event that any contempt of court rules are traced back to us.

As an extreme example - I'm not suggesting that anyone would do this - but if someone were to host a group of friends to watch in one house, and if one person were to record images or video from the court and post them on social media, then that person would be in contempt of court. And if things blew up, and it were traced to an event in your home then, at the very least, the host would have a shitshow on their hands.

Big shot 😆

To which I'd say - show me the written policy?
There was nothing in writing at all?!
Absolutely outrageous Kafkaesque state of affairs. Totally unlawful

It's the same in Scotland, at least - and I would assume England as well because prison policies are separately administered but are on the whole pretty similar. Complain and you lose privileges. Bringng a case after release would be safer, but prisoners tend to be from a demographic that can't afford courts costs and most won't know about the JKR fund. I suspect many also aren't keen to voluntarily spend more time in court.

That claim by NHS Fife that the costs won't affect patient care is ridiculous. Just the £25k excess would pay for several minor operations, or employ an HCA for about half a year. Never mind the national effect of the full bill.

Hard to judge the interim figure as a proportion of the final likely bill. The court prep costs - taking statements, preparing arguments, creating the bundles - I assume would normally come.almost entirely before the trial starts. That will be skewed in this case by Fife dragging their heels in disclosure so a lot more prep being needed between parts 1 and 2. And the damages award comes entirely at the end. So the figure so far could be considerably less than half.

KPSS documented women being sanctioned for “transphobia” for misgendering.

I’m sure a few of you have heard me say this before, but in case we have any new faces:

NHS policy explicitly requires this type of sanction. And transphobia can be anything from saying “I am a devout Muslim and I cannot provide intimate care to that fully intact, trans-identifying male patient” to a nurse waiting outside a changing room until the trans-identifying man is finished changing before using it herself. As well as misgendering. It may not be lawful - it may never have been lawful - but it is in every NHS policy.

Just to be clear, I specifically used the example of religion, because many of the NHS policies we have read specifically say that even religion may not be used as a reason for a woman to excuse herself from (for example) strip searching a trans-identifying man in a mental health ward. Not because I believe that any woman should not have the right to refuse to do this.

transphobia can be anything from saying “I am a devout Muslim and I cannot provide intimate care to that fully intact, trans-identifying male patient”

Trans is confusing matters here. Religion must not be used within the NHS for any professional (nurses, doctors, HCA, physios etc) to be excused from providing care on the grounds of sex. If a female nurse is so devout a Muslim to not want provide intimate care to men then she should not be employed by the NHS. Equally if a devout male Muslim doctor does not wish to treat women then he should be sacked.

Is that official NHS policy? If so, it is, in my view, highly questionable in terms of employment law.

If a doctor is the only doctor available and they refuse to treat a patient in need of urgent, life-saving treatment, sacking them is likely to be justified regardless of whether the refusal is for religious or other reasons. However sacking (or refusing to employ) a doctor or nurse because their religious beliefs prevent them from providing care/treatment to individuals of the opposite sex in most situations could well be unlawful discrimination.

My apologies. I picked a poor example, and also didn’t explain myself clearly. I’ll try again: in some situations - such as, for example intimate searches or bathing/showering observation in mental health wards - the NHS specifies that only men should search/observe men, and only women should search/observe women. They make a big deal about how important this is. They then, in the same policies, say that trans-identifying men must be searched by women, and trans-identifying women must be searched by men. And that there are no circumstances, including religious belief, under which staff may refuse to do this.

I agree with you, and I think most NHS staff (and indeed their policies) would too, that under emergency circumstances, different instructions would be in play.

Surely it's lawful discrimination to refuse to employ a doctor who will only treat one sex just as it's lawful discrimination to refuse to employ a doctor who will not prescribe the OCP or perform terminations if that is what the job entails? For example refusing to hire a doctor who will only treat patients of the same sex is a proportionate means to a legitimate aim of treating all patients that rock up in A&E or a GP surgery regardless of sex.

Think a doctor or nurse trying to claim their religion prevented it would have a hard time. I'm not Muslim but actions that are not normally permissible can be for health needs.

Whether only men treat men or only women treat women should be down to what is in the patients interest. Sex should only be relevant to professionals where it places them at risk of sexual assault/harassment or due to their specialty.

There should be no place in the NHS for a male dermatologist who refuses to treat women - that would be direct sex discrimination by the NHS toward patients, and a step towards the Taliban’s ideology. Don’t think for a moment it would be men losing out.

And I explained that I was not talking about the provision of healthcare. I was talking about policies that explicitly say that it is very important that men only intimately search men, and women only intimately search women, but that then follow that by saying transwomen must be searched by women and transmen must be searched by men.

Again, I apologise for my miscommunication - should I ask to have my post removed for clarity, do you think?

(sorry, that’s in reply to @Dwimmer)

This would all need testing in tribunal, but my tentative view is that it would clearly be lawful for a gynaecology department to refuse to employ a doctor who refused to treat women. However, if a doctor has religious grounds for refusing to treat women, it would potentially be unlawful discrimination if you refuse to employ them in a role in, say, oncology where the patients will be of both sexes and there will be other doctors who can treat the women.