NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #45

[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 had been intended to be 28 July with 2 days of submissions from counsel meaning that the hearing was to have ended on 30 July. However, it became apparent as the hearing progressed that this schedule wouldn't be followed. (Considerable understatement.)

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 #40 can be found in this thread: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379717-sandie-peggie-list-of-threads-covering-employment-tribunal-and-afterwards

Thread 41: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379334-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-41 24 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 42: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379820-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-42 25 July 2025 to 25 July 2025
Thread 43: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5379979-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-43 25 July 2025 to 27 July 2025
Thread 44: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5380196-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-44 25 July 2025 to 28 July 2025

She was miscalled LN. It should have said FW.

If I was working at Fife I'd be throwing my phone in the bin and taking a vow of silence from now on.

even if she’s “not very nice” that isn’t what she was struck off for.

and that matters as any woman could have complained about DU.

being nice is irrelevant surely?

Even the accusation that she’s racist, and this is their proof; - she wasn’t struck off for that.

No, I reckon she’s really proud of herself. Plus she’s still employed by the NHS, who no doubt are grateful she gave evidence to support them and she’s likely in management’s good books. Plus, that same NHS can choose not to investigate her wrongdoing and it’s likely that unless the public really insists on LN being held accountable for her actions, nothing will happen to her.

It really does look bloody desparate doesn't it???!

JR has nothing else to work with. NC has shitloads.

Its very noticable.

I had an interesting conversation with a colleague today. Both NHS, colleague is a Dr and I am not. Colleague agrees with DU as I expected as a member of BMA and they tend to stick together in our organisation. However we both agreed a) it’s not a good look for NHS and b) would you want these people treating you? Ot
Making these policies about you and your working life? They may be totally competent but not exactly professional .

Some years ago MNer (who i will not name as she got outed) created a Spotify playlist for the board. I am listening to it in tribute to the tribunal and Vicar in a tutu just came on. Now been followed by What a Man!

Even if she ‘had it in for him’ it doesn’t change the fact she shouldn’t have had to share a changing room with a man and shouldn’t have been suspended for saying so. They’re not even claiming she said anything stronger that’ll ’what are your chromosomes?’ to his face. Surely we don’t live in a world where we can’t botch about our colleagues in private, I think most workplaces would be empty if that were the case!

Today was depressing but I really don't understand how any of it was relevant to the employment tribunal, either Sandie's claims, or NHS Fife's defence.

As far as I can tell none of the stuff today was even picked up in the investigation against Sandie by NHS Fife.

Hopefully Michael Foran will be able to explain what the purpose of today's witnesses was.

Would be also good to know what the next steps on LN admitting that she'd shared confidential patient info will be.

In reality, the legal teams are working through the night anyway.

God, FB absolutely trawled the depths of human despair for giggles for years and now he's writing political books and doin' yoga, and I absolutely forgot about it for a while there, you're right.

Many many years ago, something similar happened to us when we rented a canalboat with my Aunt's family and took it to be pumped out at a boatyard (but the bathroom doors were bolted closed! It was the boatyard's fault that they had the pump set in the wrong direction so we left them for the day to clean the bathroom. Let's just say they used A LOT of disinfectant and the individual responsible probably never made that mistake again.

She’s only with her solicitor where NC has Charlotte Elves. And you’ll forgive me but during this hearing I’ve rather assumed that NHS Fife either don’t have an in house legal team or they’ve all gone AWOL. I mean just the disclosure problems alone… If there are actually legal staff there and involved then theyre more of a liability than an asset based on this performance

IANAL but today seems like a waste of time and money by Fife NHS

Now Nicola's girlfriend is tweeting about how nice and supportive Sandie and her family have been towards their relationship.

Probably a good thing she's not Pakistani though (sadly).

Man of many talents. Printer toner bin probably just needs emptying. Doesn't even need the toolkit for that ...

Can you really not see the problem here, in bold? And now you are claiming despite being "contemptuous about them" he somehow overcomes this bias and nevertheless treat them fairly? That's extremely unlikely if he's not even able to talk about them neutrally at work.

In your opinion.

You obviously struggle to separate the personal from the professional. We aren't all the same as you. I'm not willing to treat others with prejudice by expecting their thoughts and experiences to be policed by everyone around them at all times. What a hideous place that is. It's closer than we realise.

Diversity is our strength.

That is true, plus when something horrid happens to me i always make a joke about it like even when i broke my arm as a kid the first thing i said was ‘oh well least i wont have to do dishes for a while’ so it is definitely a thing and i like edgy humour especially when you see the state of comedy now from what it used to be.

Well it's public now that she breached patient confidentiality. You don't discuss patients with people not involved in their care (did everyone in the group chat work on the same ward?) much less on an Internet chat.
I know if I was a Fife employee and they ever tried to discipline me, I'd be saying hang on, what about LM?
They'd be stupid to brush this under the carpet now it's public knowledge. And it is quite a serious offense. I've known nurses to be sacked for less.

I am ashamed to say, I am not familiar with the working of course. Thank you for the information..Every day is a school day! I'm sure they aren't having long lazy mornings. I'm just glad they don't start earlier because I will be hanging on the latest and might misjudge the time. Totally my fault if it did happen of course!

What a shit storm.

Why didn't JR and team read through that bundle of messages before submitting them as evidence. That seems really amateur. Lindsey is an idiot who will likely find herself investigated by the NMC for the breach of patient confidentiality. While the whole WhatsApp group should be investigated. NHS Fife is toxic.

All for what, so Fife could throw some mud at Sandie, because the racists jokes have no bearing on the actual case, the reasons for the investigation or her suspension.

I could see myself nervously snorting in response to something terrible someone has said, out of shock/incredulity.

But I'm not familiar with the phenomenon of the involuntary trigger finger which posts 😂😂😂 in response to someone posting bigoted or unpalatable jokes in a chat group. She laughed cos she agreed/thought it was funny.

I also joke about my own dark shit, but I don't think it's the same as joking about others' horrific experiences. I don't know why it's funny to joke about mass human death after a natural disaster. I'm not trying to scold, I mean that genuinely.

Some might say that it is more respectful to make risky / risque jokes about ethnic minorities, just like you would about anyone else, and not treat them differently simply because they are not white

One thing has occurred to me catching up on this thread is this: if SP was as pure as the driven snow, had never had a racist thought or uttered or written anything deemed to be racist, was the opposite of racist (whatever that means) would she be more deserving of SSS? More deserving of the tribunal finding against NHSF?