NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #32

[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 resumed 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 were 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.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

Links to previous threads #1 to #29 can be found in the header of thread #30.

Thread 30: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375337-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-30
Thread 31: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5375819-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-31

According to the Scottish press "Ms Peggie has been on sick leave with stress since February and cites her treatment by NHS Fife as the sole reason."

Do you mean Dr Upton?

SP is still suspended surely, not on sick leave?

Presumably on full pay, since anything else would surely amount to a pre-determination of guilt. And we all know NHS Fife doesn't like to pre-judge.

I am in NZ and this thread is my main source of updates.

What I want to ask all the “allies” is- What is your tolerance before you put a boundary in? How many women have to be harmed, before you realise this is a problem? How many TGW have to get gold medals before you see that it’s a gateway for cheating? How many children have to be detransitioned before you believe that the system doesn’t work?

I think I have trained my chatGPT to do better.

So if it is AI, it’s yet another own goal by Fife for a) not using it properly and b) not checking the output.

No, it doesn't

😂I think I saw a bit of Chat GPT in it. But who knows.

I ask chat gpt to critique my work and list grammatical errors, but not to rewrite it.

Always one more than what has currently happened, always.

@Butchyrestingface - Sandie was suspended initially for a short period. Others can verify. She has been working since early 2024 up to February this year. So she went back to work for a year but press have reported she’s off sick during the tribunal period due to stress. She presumably relies on sick pay - NHS can be generous for some months.

Happy to be corrected.

She can work but given how everyone in the management bar HR were utterly biased and shared those biases against her - and is now being inferred as a racist etc… no wonder she’s stressed.

A friend's school wrote all their reports by AI this year.

It's been a car crash of complaints.

Responses to the complaints written by AI have not been well received.

I think we are more safe from the AI take over than we've been led to believe at this stage.

I think it is highly likely HR had no clue. This email was part of the documents not disclosed initially so they wouldn’t have even found out from the initial bundle, as far as I can make out. It was clever NC and team who clocked clues in the initial bundle that material was missing.

It's like that earlier meme about Maya F's victory in he tribunal ("... does not mean that she can break into old ladies' home and steal their We'ther's Originals', etc:

'To be clear NHS Fife is not seeking to suggest that anyone involved with Sex Matters has created the climate crisis ... caused major pollution incidents in UK rivers ... run county lines drugs networks ...' etc.

That's a disgraceful action by the school. AI is very unnatural in its delivery which is why I find it so readily identifiable. Clearly I'm not alone!

@Butchyrestingface I believe what @IslandsAround said is correct. Upton may or may not be working somewhere. He hasnt put in an appearance at the tribunal this time but other people have stated no need for him to be there.

I think she is being very careful not to tweet about the ET itself but once NHS Fife published that statement she feels free to make hay with that and it’s surrounds.

Absolutely support Sandy, Fife have been an absolute shit show and I hope she takes them to the cleaners. I'm slightly worried that Fife may have some defence that the suspension was normal practice, many years ago I got suspended by the NHS ( not Fife), I was invited to a meeting with a manager (same grade as ED) escorted off premises and told not to contact anyone I worked with. Now I got support from my union and got reinstated a few months later, after the investigation - as far as could see there wasn't one - decided that I had nothing to answer, but in many ways my treatment mirrors Sandy's

Also saw on Twitter that when questioned, Louise Curran denied the claims in Kate Searle's letter to BU that she'd told KS she condemned SP's actions and fully supported BU.

Mind you, apparently LC also claimed she didn't understand what 'Re:' meant in the subject line of an email.

Can't imagine what it would have been like having to work with these people on a daily basis. They should have been hooked up to life support in intensive care with someone sticking a pin in them to test reflexes for brain death. Not running a hospital department.

I am contemplating taking the day off and buying a TV licence in anticipation of Kate Searle taking the stand.

Ah, okay. Thanks! Must have been a horrible environment to return to.

n+1

Try Copilot - that's what's approved for use in NHS Scotland

Louise Curran didn't know what verbatim meant, either.

I also read online from a Scottish paper, not sure which, that SP is on sick leave due to hospital-induced stress. I don't think Upton would (could?) claim his stress was due to how he had been treated by Victoria Hospital. Or could he?

From Twitter, in honour of Dr Kate Searle's highly anticipated appearance at the tribunal.

I would definitely buy that mug! Is anyone selling it? Or can anyone start selling it, a la hamster (or was it gerbil) merchandise?

@Strawberrysummer25 Suspending both Upton and Sandie might have been reasonable, although given the staffing issues in the NHS a few shift changes could have been enough. Sandie worked nights only and Upton was rotating out soon anyway. A short suspension and a rapid investigation could possibly have been justified once Upton raised patient safety concerns. When one of those concerns was denied by a witness present at the time reinstatement should have been considered immediately.

Taking 18 months over an investigation that was clearly prejudged - not acceptable.

Louise Curran didn't know what verbatim meant, either.

They're not hired on the basis of #BigBrainEnergy at that hospital, it would appear.

I don't think Upton would (could?) claim his stress was due to how he had been treated by Victoria Hospital. Or could he?

He may argue that the hospital should have known about and protected him from the evil, goblin transphobic nurse who didn't automatically tug the forelock when confronted by male doctors in the women's changing room.

@CarefulN0w (and any other lurking RCN members), nominations currently open for the two main committees that drive RCN if you want a challenge...
I'm not a nurse so am just cheering on the GC nurses from the sidelines.

www.rcn.org.uk/magazines/News/uk-nominations-open-to-sit-on-influential-rcn-committees-180725

Think it's available on Etsy.