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

Getting upset because you're a man being asked to leave the women's changing rooms is a total crock.

The support helpline is 24/7, 365 days a year. Of course, we don’t know if this is the one Upton was directed to/used.

Or...there's nothing erased, but also nothing contemporaneous in relation to the patient safety made up incident.

I disagree with this approach. There are plenty of people who would love to see these threads shut down and providing them with ammunition to push for this is not a good idea.

None of his supporters invited him into their changing room did they?

We know that Sandie found Dr U's presence in the CR intimidating, we know that on the night in question she challenged him. While she didn't know what a shit storm it was about to unleash we can assume that SP was at least slightly affected by the incident. Even if her challenging Dr U had no emotional impact on her she was 'triggered' by his being in the CR when she needed to deal with her bloodied scrubs.

Whatever the emotional impact on her she parked it and got on with the next 8 hours of work. No sobbing, no wailing, gnashing of teeth and absolutely no running round the department to find a colleague to snitch to sob at seak support from.

Or that there are notes about people's behaviours that could be used as evidence of something but that they haven't been reported because they are being held back to be produced when trying to stitch up a 'phobe.

The way it works here for any bands would be list of qualifications and experience and if you don’t have those you don’t get an interview. In Northern Ireland though things are stricter then rest of UK for reasons… Those qualifications and experience are rigorously adhered to. Doesn’t stop cronyism and nepotism but limits it to an extent.

P

It probably is, our work one is, but those kinds of helpline are usually contracted out to third parties, unlikely it would be staffed by BMA people.

Would the IT guy who is going to be cross examined have been responsible for sorting the extra disclosures?

Maybe he will be trying to explain why shedloads of docs were overlooked by Fife NHS/Upton?

Just a thought?

Presumably all witnesses are responsible for their own “full disclosure” as well as somebody who knows about Ctrl+F and a keyword?

x.com/MForstater/status/1946162128957698119?t=ksWlWG4YNnHUuiCssl6OKg&s=19

This tweet has obviously been posted before, but at this point I'm so behind I don't care.

But I'm posting it now because...

1.2 million views of Maya's Kate Searle email tweet.

1.2 MILLION

<laughs maniacally>

I have been absolutely enthralled with this. An attempt was made to bully Sandie Peggie to extinction by her entire management. That is disgusting. I am a women of a certain age and i remember not so long ago the menopausal flooding that meant running to nearest facility to deal with it. For a f…… 6 ft 2 male to come in and make it his opportunity to make a stand to try and get validation that he was a fing ‘ladeee’ is disgusting beyond belief. She was still on duty needed to sort that out and he went running ‘sobbing’ to the person in charge to tell her how intimidated he was. It’s so disgusting that it needs known to anyone that will listen. Sandie Peggie sorted out her issue and changed and went about her job like the professional that she was and didn’t complain to anyone. We all know what happened after that. It’s the most disgusting thing I have heard in a long while. She is a hero.

Requiring patients who are so mentally unwell that they are receiving hospital care to play along with the pretence that Upton is a woman is abusive. These are people who are struggling to be in touch with reality, and the people charged with caring for them are expecting the to go along with a doctor's delusions about himself, call him she, call him a female name. Anyone complicit in that is unfit to work in mental health.

And we know from the NHS audit threads that some NHS hospitals have an explicit policy that if patients don't go along with it, they can be discharged and refused care. It's institutional abuse.

@SternlyMatthews I've reported your post because I don't think it's appropriate to link to a facebook account, even if it is in fact the Isla Bumba who is involved with this employment tribunal.

I can understand people wanting to know if there was some granny-ing in of some of the people involved in this and why. Nepotism or trans activists enshittifying institutions should be a concern.

I just don't think it's appropriate for posters to be sharing links to people or facebook profiles. We've had already one of those posts earlier turned out to be someone not connected at all!

We need to be really careful here. No one wants the waters muddied, no one wants the thread taken down, access to the tribunal revoked, and no one wants false information to be spread.

Just seen this Michael Foran post on x about whether Fife can decide not to continue the tribunal

It’s understandable that some think that NHS Fife and Dr Upton don’t have an opportunity to settle with Sandie Peggie given they are the respondents but this isn’t true. They can concede liability or stop calling witnesses and move to a judgment based on the evidence so far.

Sadly, it’s hardly unusual for a resident doctor to be driven to tears. I’ve certainly been there in my day. Usual practice is to hide in the sluice for a few minutes, stick your game face on, then crack on. It is generally considered polite for all colleagues to pretend they have seen nothing, though a cup of tea may mysteriously materialise. I’ve also been in the position of being phoned when oncall by a resident doctor alleging racist bullying by a somewhat more senior locum doctor. I spoke to both parties, temporarily glued the team back together, made some notes, and escalated the next morning. This stuff isn’t rocket science.

@Boiledbeetle
I wonder how many views Maya got after Fife's statement drew attention to it?! 😂

In defence of DU (never thought i say that!) I see on here all the time to email things to your own email address so they don't vanish if you have bullying situations. So recording notes on his phone isn't too far from that.

Defence over.

Also because there are some amount of nutters out there, I wouldn't want people's private profile being shared because some people will use that info to harass.

We think IB has been subject to this already, and while I think she's either afraid or (more likely IMO) captured, no one deserves to be harassed.

Let's not make it easier for the lunatics to find these women please.

ETA: spelling

My guess is that a forensic and possibly even non-forensic examination of his phone will be very revealing.

WhatsApp celebrations, Reddit bragging, even his Christmas Day photos- I don’t even see MN plopping as being beyond the realms of possibility.

Agree. NHS staff aren't robots (lol). I once made a (very hardy) consultant cry by mentioning a young patient's funeral when the consultant hasn't known he'd died. You cry, splash water on your face and get back in the game. Possibly someone makes you a cuppa or passes you a phone number for the chaplain. NHS staff are humans, but work is where you deal with other people's stuff, not your own.

You don’t just have to be incompetent or inexperienced (I’m definitely not one of those, as have been around for 35 years) but if someone asked me for advice as an NHS Matron on where a transperson should change I’d be forced to follow our fucking policy which states that people use the facilities that fit their ‘gender identity’.
This is still the case following the Supreme Court ruling.

Oops.