NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #35

[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 and tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/peggie-vs-fife-health-board-and-dr-bd6. 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
Thread 32: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376072-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-32
Thread 33: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5376608-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-33
Thread 34: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5377387-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-34

And then one directly to Dr Upton

https://x.com/MForstater/status/1946195954803048953?

Second email to Dr Upton

https://x.com/MForstater/status/1946206106545496417?

And one to Esther Davidson.

https://x.com/MForstater/status/1946217114370461949?

Ian Tanburn? Love the surname.

Regarding your first point, I don’t quite agree. It has been established that she was given unfavourable information about the claimant, by the line management involved that wanted her gone.

Therefore she isn’t truly neutral, if she’s been spoon fed damning accusations designed to influence her opinion. Her relationship with the others involved is just as important (or even more so) than her relationship with the claimant. In my experience of being a senior manager in public sector, the people that get allocated to clean up in a situation like this, are usually those that are agreeable to the management team involved.

I agree. Ime nobody would leave any confidential and docs on somebody's desk for anyone to see & without prior discussion - let alone such highly sensitive info. I have known people be reprimanded or disciplined for things like this. NHSF working practices just seem so utterly unprofessional.

Those emails:
Judgement & condemn
Assist one side
Sentence
As the military say. Present - FIRE - Aim

Gosh Dr Searle is quite the shit stirrer, isn't she?

I think the ref to the 'hate incident' in the 2nd bullet point is particularly damning. Not even 'alleged hate incident'.

I missed this earlier. Surely, even NHSF have a confidentiality policy that covers paper documents along with the electronic variety?

One that talks about locked drawers/cupboards/rooms and only having necessary information?

I agree.

And on the second point I’m not convinced by the claim that someone returning from suspension always requires supervision. It would surely depend on the circs of the supervision because it is a very expensive thing to do.

LM was quite clear she defended it to SP by claiming that it might somehow protect her from further accusations of racism homophobia etc. This is problematic on so may points. She has already testified that there was no merit in those claims yet she is acting on them. She has testified that SP managers had no, and never had had, any concerns. No one else has claimed it was standard.

We will find out more, I’m sure tomorrow. I hope NC follows up on that and asks other witnesses if this was policy and if so where does it say it is.

The emails do seem to clear up the shifts question.

At the time of the emails Upton had 4 shifts left before moving to anaesthetics, but that move was a secondment not a permanent move. So he therefore presumably returned to the A&E dept afterwards. Hence ongoing possibility of shift overlap once SP's suspension ended.

Yes which means they time to test other means for resolving the issue rather than suspension.

Unlike HR, LM didn’t try and assert the suspension had no foundation. She sought to mitigate it by ending it when its duration had run its course. The detriment is not qualified therefore. If she had written somewhere that there seems to be insufficient grounds for a suspension there would be greater heft to her appearance of professionalism.

Just popping up to say that I don't have the time to even attempt to keep up with these threads, but I'd like to thank those who provide information on the tribunal (and recipes).

In the olden days communications coming in to someone in that role would have had to be listed in the day book, numbered, and filed. In any place interacting with a potentially litigious public, to say nothing of staff and unions, that was a core responsibility. Carried out every day without fail. Big manilla folders were kept related to any issue that started to grow beyond a one-off. Eventually it got carried away to the archives, where one day it will make future historians happy.

What happens now in this brave paperless new world?

The move was not a "secondment". Junior doctors (resident doctors now) move around to different specialties. Upton was in his second year of rotations so should not return to a&e unless he sought a training post or non training post there.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2q8zzx0d7o

BBC reporting during Feb tribunal re: claim that Upton was compared to a rapist.

India Willoughby perfectly articulates why people like India and Beth will continue to use women's facilities regardless of the SC ruling and the outcome of this (or any other) tribunal. In their minds, they ARE biological women.

Can I ask a stupid question. LM stated that she had been informed of patient issues and said that the person who told her about them would be in trouble for not reporting them. Should she not have reported them herself.

To be investigated then it would all be sorted

They all knew what a MFU (monumental fuck up) it was, which is why they hid it from the initial hearing.

Luckily NC is a lot cleverer than them, and sniffed it out.

Receipts being an old word for recipes, Mumsnetters are very good at providing both!

It seems odd that when KS offered nothing in reply LM had nothing further to add. I also struggle to believe KS would have had nothing to say to that point. We shall, we hope, find out tomorrow.

MN will be making a shit ton of money from these threads, so I wouldn't worry too much!