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

They really would 😂

It's not beyond the realm of possibility that there was a special 'hurty feelings burn the witches' hotline.

And no such support for other staff members with issues arising over that period.

There are quite a few Mcleods at NHS Fife still.

I disagree that we shouldn’t be interested in the background of the individuals involved. IB’s advice that Upton could use the female changing room is what created this situation. If she gave that advice because she was incompetent or inexperienced in her role, it’s natural to look for reasons why she was nonetheless employed to do it.

I'm really late to this, but the NHS everywhere struggles to recruit anything IT/digital because anyone with decent skills can earn so much more elsewhere. The agenda for change pay structure limits what you can offer, eg web designer would be band 6 which tops out at about ?£44k, even if you manage to recruit they usually get poached by tech companies after 6 months.

Hmmm good point. There's erased stuff isn't there? And if there is erased stuff it's not going to be good for Fife is it?

Agreed! This idea that women fall into wrecks because of words is so nonsense. Especially see, for example, nurses working for years on the front line.

In front line jobs you deal with incredibly hard stuff on a daily.

That an ER doc would fall for this crap boggles my brain.

Honestly same here. It's a busy busy topic and there are many many posters. I can hardly keep up!

I fear the expert could be there just to say that there isn't erased stuff, or something equally boring, so let's not get too excited.

Problem with the sleuthing is that a completely unrelated man, with a completely different name (as rebs has said, Mc and Mac are not the same name with a misspelling, they are completely different names) now has his photo on this thread, with posters pointing out what they perceive to be familial similarities.

THANKYOU 😅

But I thought it was sex matters being the big meanie trying to influence public opinion.

Not The Times of London ...

Just place marking so I don’t lose track of the threads - I know we’re almost done here but I’ve a lot to catch up on.

Quite. A female doctor behaving the way Upton did would be told to go outside for 5 minutes, get it together, then get back to work. Escorted to his car for safety? Staff at my Trust are expected to get the park and ride bus back to a windy dark carpark in the middle of nowhere after a shift, my previous (female, nurse) manager was physically assaulted and robbed there.

I know HCPs who have been physically attacked, threatened, had their children's safety threatened, been called murderers, been told 'I know where you live and I'll make you suffer',had things thrown at them, had an angry patient's relative track them down and come to their house, been called stupid bitch/ ignorant p@ki/ fucking cunt etc etc etc.

And I don't even work in the kind of sharp end service that A&E is. A&E doctors have to work with every sort of criminal, aggressive people under the influence, mentally ill people out of touch with reality who lash out, scared people who lash out, every bodily fluid, deaths on every shift. They cannot and do not go running round sobbing because someone said something they didn't like, and that would not have been pandered to if it were anyone other than a member of the sacred caste.

Maybe she was an ambitious young woman who applied for a job.above her paygrade and did a great interview. Something men do all the time.

This feels too much, speculating on her parentage.

My DD had to continue her shift after a patient attempted to strangle her, leaving marks- She was working as a temp care assistant (as an 18 year old gap year student) at a MH unit. Hurty words would have barely got an eye roll.

No idea how DU managed a MH training placement.

Agree 100%.

He either made that story up, in which case he is a vindictive narc who tried to ruin a woman who told him "no".

Or it was true, and he should have Datix-ed it there and then, as it compromised patidnt safety.

Either way, he looks bad.

(And an investigation found mo witnesses to the incident.)

I'm willing to bet he'll throw management under the bus. He'll be able to testify as to the exact parameters of the requests, when they were made and by whom.

It's also going to show up the incompetence in the supposed investigation, which verges on a cover up IMO.

Apologies, i have no idea if they are related. Mea culpa.

It could also help to establish whether DU was a generally paranoid person spending working time keeping secret notes on everyone, perhaps actively looking for slights against his recently adopted TW persona.

It just seems super unlikely that in a 30 year career, Wee Sondie has endangered her patients exactly four times, all in the space of weeks, all in sight of a doctor who has a massive cob on with her. All incidents not reported at the time, and recalled months later, after a wee chat with the BMA rep.

I mean... chances of that?

I am not defending Upton, but everyone has their fault lines. Getting upset by a colleague on a personal matter is very different from being able to manage a difficult front line job.

It seemed interesting timing that according to the evidence earlier in the year that DU did not make any "patient care" allegations from events in October until after speaking with the BMA contact in late Dec - it begs the question of whether DU was advised that having words in the cr was not enough to get rid of SP - that they needed to bolster their claims.

In evidence the "patient care" claims seemed to be nothing more than DU's annoyance that SP didn't fawn over him and (clutches pearls) once left him to do a job that he thought beneath him.

And he couldn't even describe the patient and story. I think iirc that SP even put forward a patient they had looked after together as a suggestion to try and pin down what he was actually talking about and he said, "no, not that one, another one..." And SP said, I don't remember there being any other patients in resus in the time period discussed that we cared for together. And DU hasn't yet come back with anything. Iirc NC suggested that it wouldn't be that hard to cross reference the shifts they were on together and look at when there were patients in resus to narrow down the dates and times it could have happened. I think DU was ever more vague.

Feb feels a long time ago now so I may be mixing bits up

I'm honestly concerned for everyone involved with that. Is he working with people so severely mentally ill that they are in hospital, likely suffering delusions and hallucinations and so on, and telling them he's a woman? And having tearful breakdowns if they misgender him?

And despite his protestations of shocked disbelief, he must surely have known this changing room issue might come up at some point - and was indeed likely to. So he was probably primed to react strongly. I don't believe he was wandering around oblivious that this could ever be an issue until it happened.