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

Plus patients being discriminated against by the NHS prioritising the beliefs of doctors over patient care and consent - something we have seen with Dr Upton who says he will treat patients asking for a female doctor and claim he is a female doctor.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4823723-telegraph-patients-may-be-guilty-of-discrimination-if-they-refuse-care-of-transgender-medic-nhs-bosses-told

In legal terms, patients requesting treatment are not offering themselves as a service to health care professionals, so there's no legal duty owed by a patient not to be "discriminatory" to anyone treating them.

It seems extraordinary to me that on a thread regarding a court case where not only NHS Fife is a respondent, but Dr Upton individually is too, that we are debating whether it is ok for doctors and nurses to discriminate in the provision of care based on their own beliefs.

Yes, but there is by the NHS and doctors and nurses acting as the NHS.

Some of the crazier policies unearthed by the audit team beg to differ. One - possibly Rotherham? - says that if a female patient declines to be treated by a male IDing as a woman HCP, she will have to drop her demands, apologise and submit to being treated by him, or she should be discharged and refused further care. The capture in the NHS is truly staggering.

NHS Fife has reluctantly released the legal costs so far, which are £220,000 to 31 May. They’ve also stated :

’These costs will be reclaimed through the national Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS). Under CNORIS, NHS Fife’s financial liability is limited to £25,000, which ensures that the legal proceedings do not impact frontline clinical or patient services.’

The scheme is a pooled fund from members, which presumably costs them a shitload to be part of anyway. I doubt the scheme would cover damages, but maybe someone else knows? It seems they don’t really care what it costs, if they think their liability is restricted to £25,000.

NHS Fife spends £220,000 defending Sandie Peggie tribunal. Not sure if this has already been posted. But, in haste….

https://www.thetimes.com/article/04c69021-8a93-43f9-b2ab-2acc1178fc02?shareToken=804b6375299d7b5947da032db21d9183

It's £220k and counting and incredible reputational damage that cannot be calculated. How many now think of Fife as the hospital with the dodgy bloke in a trenchcoat pretending to be a woman and scaring nurses?
The photos across newspapers tell the clear story. Upton will go back to the next part looking like the bloke he is and the media will capture the images to spread the message and peak more people.

£220k they could have built him his personal changing room for that.

That's an astonishing figure. Is anyone else surprised? How could Sandie have hoped to go up against that without some source of funding?

I'm not overly surprised.
Lawyers are pricey people (ever think you made some duff career choices) and not only are they pricey they start charging as soon as they lift the phone.

NHS Fife will no doubt have internal lawyers as well as have got specialists in. The specialists will be even more pricey than their internal lawyers.

I have no doubt they'll have fully expected Sandie Peggie to back down and walk away. They weren't expecting her to have the guts, the finances or a friend (thank God for that friend) with Magically deep pockets.

What a team bless them both 👏

Honestly I think that 220K is inaccurately low because I suspect they’re only including the actual legal fees

if you count in the hours of staff time spent by multiple ppl at NHS Fife in meetings about tis, emails and phone calls about this & reports about this, the true cost will be much higher

Legal bods are suspicious that they have only reported the cost to date of defending the board and have excluded the costs associated with defending DU. There are 2 defence teams that they are funding. They are saying it isn’t only the wording of Fife’s response that leads to this suspicion but also the amount. Apparently the wording of their response FOI allowed for this response to be provided

Not to mention paying replacement nurses while a nurse with 30 years experience is unnecessarily suspended for months, and for cover for the doctor who claims he is too stressed to work because of this incident.

There will be other costs too. I wonder if staff are being paid for their time in court on behalf of the trust. I should imagine, if you add it all up honestly, they are probably wasting over a million pounds on this specific incident, in which they insisted, against all logic and compassion, that a man must be allowed to change in the women’s changing room.

They also wouldn’t have expected to become THE TEST CASE, have people beyond Scotland and the UK following with interest, to be on the 6 o’clock news, in the papers every week, questions being asked in Scottish parliament. They were naive to think the shit wasn’t going to hit the fan with this policy!

And that women must have no right to refuse the man his experience of them undressing.

I hope the trust are taken to the cleaners.

I do however fully suspect they're all bunkered in, muttering about how evil the world is and that they did what was righteous. Hail Stonewall full of grace, Judith Butler is with thee....

I’d like the press to ask FOIs on who funds payouts from the national indemnity scheme. Is this an insurance policy or is it “self-insurance”? If the latter then it will be backed by Scot gov and it’s public money

They also wouldn’t have expected to become THE TEST CASE
😂

What was that advice someone quoted upthread, about writing every email as though one day it might be read out in a tribunal?

You can see why Wes Streeting took one look at the Darlington case and went "Fuck no, we need to settle or sort this."

What annoys me is that no-one in Fife will be held to account for this.

The " national indemnity scheme " is funded with payments from health authorities. It is public money and NHS FIFE's contribution should go up considerably next year as the amount you pay is based on your claims record.

As for the Darlington nurses - their case is till live. Wes may have managed to reduce ongoing costs but the health authority will still need to make the nurses a compensation offer and pay their costs. I havent seen anything to say the case has been settled although the man may no longer be in with them - and I'm not even sure about that. https://www.nursingtimes.net/policies-and-guidance/nhs-england-intervenes-in-darlington-nurse-changing-room-dispute-13-06-2025/

When I looked it up it seems like it’s not an “insuranc” scheme as such. It’s a fund which holds a central reserve for all the Scottish NHS Trusts. In the year of the claim they pay the first £25k then the fund covers the rest of the expense - which is billed back/recovered from the Trusts over time. Their payments into the fund are directly linked to what they have drawn out. In other words it’s a central cash reserve to smooth out cash flow and to avoid all the trusts having to hoard cash inefficiently in case of claims. There is absolutely no doubt - the scheme might cover the cost now but NHS Fife will pay the bill eventually. It’s disingenuous for Scotgov to suggest otherwise

That’s my old boss’ advice! Young people find that way of writing a bit stuffy and formal… more fool them!

I wonder that CNORIS haven't said,

"This hasn't a hope in Hell of winning, we're not paying another penny!"

Then again, they don't seem to be a commercial outfit.

DH is fully on board with women only spaces and TWANW etc, but sometimes doesn’t really grasp why I’m so “opinionated” on the topic, mainly because of his default male view and experience of the world. He means well and I’m gradually educating him.

Case in point, last night I was telling him I’d applied to listen in to Tribunal and some of the background - he’s Scottish and has Views on Scottish politics so he was sort of interested. And then this morning he comes to me to tell me he’s read an article in the paper about it and did I realise how much the NHS has wasted on this and the Doctor doesn’t even have a GRC?! And apparently one of the Board members has a transgender spouse which is where this is coming from…

i had to smile and say “yes dear”. I do love him but honestly he is so male sometimes in only taking stuff I say on board when someone else says it, and then it’s completely new to him.

@ThreeWordHarpy, is the board member with a trans spouse a new piece of info? Because I don’t recall hearing that on here before. It would certainly explain one or two (but not all) things.