NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #27

[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 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] by 5pm on Wednesday 9 July. Detailed instructions wereFri provided here:

drive.google.com/file/d/16-9POEZ7yHWUr6EmbfquJZO18Gv78bSm/view

The hearing is being live tweeted by x.com/tribunaltweets and there's additional information here: tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-005. 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.ph/WSSjg.

An alternative to Twitter is to use Nitter: nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Thread 1: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5186317-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse
Thread 2: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5267591-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-thread-2
Thread 3: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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
Thread 26: www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5335861-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-26

Paraphrased from TT: No Equality Impact/Risk assessments?

Me: Of course not. She is saying that there wasn’t a policy, but wasn’t she writing one?

Any evidence of critical thinking and an attempt to balance rights? Or just the reinforcement of groupthink?

14 territorial Boards...

Well if it was, at least they would bring personal experience of disability to their well-paid jobs

Am I getting this right, a bunch a EDI leads got together and pulled some guidance out of their behinds with no legal idea what they were doing?

Is this supposed to be a defense??

Still none the clearer about what Once for Scotland is. Can i assume that the idea behind it is that they would produce one policy that all of the boards could use? so that there would be no further need of cribbing someone else's homework, attempting to rewrite it and coming up with nonsense?

Because as a concept it actually sounds quite good - no need to duplicate the EDI work 14 times.

Following on TT. Why mention someone with a GRC? We know it didn’t change the law then or now as to male access to female single sex spaces. Even at that, I don’t think he had a GRC anyway.

To be fair, until the Supreme Court judgement of 16th April, there was confusion about the position of someone with a GRC. Whether someone with a GRC could use single sex facilities required under Health and Safety regs, was something which was worth clarifying. Now we know the answer is No.

That's how I'm reading it.

from TT
JR - how often did you give advice on trans policies in that period
IB - frequently, once a week

Once a week? with maybe five trans employees? they were taking up a lot of her time, weren't they?

But reassured that what they were reading supported what they were already doing. 🤔

Once for Scotland are certain policies that are applicable to all Boards. Other policies are local to certain Boards.

It’s very common in charity sector for umbrella bodies like ncvo to have template policies that small charities can c&p to use

So basically it was likely all that was discussed. Likelihood of any of the protected characteristics being mentioned in passing - small.

Yes, I think it is really useful, could someone please continue to do this if they are able.

@nebulousMoose
Years ago I sat on a policy review group. I still remember the first meeting because I was horrified! Policies were so badly written, sometimes not even in actual sentences. I declined to sign anything I hadn't created myself.

As a clinician, my personal mantra is: screw policy and stick to the law. Sometimes I breach a policy, but I know I can defend myself in court if it comes to it. As for my employers, good luck to them 😂

(from my reading of TT) JR has asked IB more than once about 'has anyone else made a complaint about CRs' and both (or more) times IB has replied 'no'. So only SP in a cast of 1000s, has had any problem with (trans) people using the CR for the opposite sex.

I think the subtext is clearly that 'nobody minded, it was all fine'

I wonder how much time IB devoted to other protected characteristics

Rhetorical question.

This goes right to the top - it will no doubt have been seen as 'best practice' because the Scottish Govt was following the same approach and turning a blind eye to the actual law.

So there was a trans policy, there also wasn't a trans policy, and either way IB was giving advice on it once a week.

I'm in the same room but I only have audio. The screen is still the black one with crossed out cameras and xx waiting in the lobby.
I'm using chrome browser. Just before the hearing started a voice said to enter the PIN but there was nowhere to do so.

I take it you can see?

I'd like to sort out the visuals for tomorrow but I have no idea what's gone wrong

EDI training and practice would in general be all about making it easier to say “yes you can” to people. And why would you need legal training or advice for doing that? It must be mind blowing to realize now that equality law requires organizations sometimes to say “no, you can’t”. That some people ask for unreasonable things.

@BettyBooper Im sorry I inhibited you, it seems the majority were very appreciative of your copy and paste efforts xx

If it helps @GreenFriedTomatothe visuals are rather superfluous if you've got audio.

I don't understand how IB was already frequently giving advice on trans policies when there wasn't a trans policy?

TT now getting into the events around Christmas break with KS and IB, the Datix (internal incident tracking).