NHS Fife tries to silence nurse - Sandie Peggie vs NHS Fife Health Board and Dr Beth Upton - thread #46

[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
Thread 45: mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5381518-nhs-fife-tries-to-silence-nurse-sandie-peggie-vs-nhs-fife-health-board-and-dr-beth-upton-thread-45 28 July 2025 to 28 July 2025

Jealousy makes some people do all sorts of strange things that aren't in their own best interests. And that's what today felt like, LN seemed jealous of Sandie.

A dark sense of humor related to work situations is fine. This is unprompted racism

However i have heard this “hang mans” sense of humour play out where people are struggling with what they are faced with in real life situations.

Theres a difference between gallows humour and racism.

There are poorer outcomes for people of color in medical setting because of people like her.

This is a completely unsubstantiated statement.

She is a nurse of 30 years standing with an unblemished record. Whatever her personal views, there is zero evidence they affected how she did her job.

Ok. Mum's a racist them. I'll let her know

This! SP is not a candidate for being St Sandie (and even if she was, you don't get canonised for being perfect). When our idols turn out to have feet of clay, we do often turn on them and I can't help feeling there's a bit of this going on here. And where else in recent years have we seen working class women's character turned against them?

How many people laugh at Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle and quite frankly I have heard worse jokes from them

@FloridaCat I have just noticed you said you grew up in the 70's so you'll be the same age as me. Mums' 75 and grew up in the 50's. Does that make any difference or is she still a racist? I doubt she's going to modify her language at this point of her life and I'm not even going to go there.

The other point i would like to make as a veteran campaigner against racism is that most training and awareness raising, tends to push racist views underground, so it just persists.

i was never a fan of no platform for racist as for the reasons above. Same can be said for the no debate mantra.

people think what they will think, open discussion is essential.

i have friends who are careful around me, but when they have a drink stuff pops out. I would not have any friends where i live if i just cut off every one who said something unacceptable to me.

Thanks. I don't equate this to something like the racist/horror trolling jokes that started this conversation. I appreciate not everyone wants to be addressed this way, but I personally don't feel any major kind of way about it. Guys has been around at least since I was into ninja turtles in the 90s. (Interestingly everyone was more concerned with kids seeing 'violence' in cartoons back then, 'guys' was a non-issue.) The Lads thing I've seen among a group of people at a wedding that all went to the same uni, and interestingly it looked like women trying to be just like the guys. LADS LADS LADS LADS hollered at intervals, more as they got drunk. It was boring. But the dynamic itself is interesting, I think. I don't need someone to say "alright lads... and lass" if I'm the only woman in the room though. It feels a bit redundant, everyone knows I'm a woman.

I remember Trevor Noah talked about this at length in one of his shows.

You honestly think that in a staff group where racism is accepted and considered a source of humour, the quality of care isn’t compromised? If you think a group of people are less than you, are ok to be the subject of pretty grim humour, that doesn’t seep into your attitudes day by day?

I’m sure most of us know of people in jobs where everyone knows they’re problematic but they’re also untouchable, particularly in the public sector. The NHS is rife with bullying and racism, if you think that atmosphere doesn’t impact patient care you’re deluded.

How SP was as a nurse is anyone’s guess, no one here worked with her - and yet again it has no bearing on the matter at hand. But to say racist views don’t impact health care is a nonsense.

Age is no excuse at all.

There are loads of 75 year olds active on this very site who would not dream of using the p word. My own mother would not have at that age and she would be in her 90s now.

You'd be doing your mum a favour if you sat her down and had a word with her.

There was not a single recorded issue with her work in 30 years.

You need to acknowledge the reality of the situation.

@FloridaCat Still think you are wrong. There are people where I live who still refer to a shop by the name it had more than 20 years ago, and it's changed more than once since. It's not prejudice, discrimination or antagonism it's habit, resistance to change and not understanding why a description is now seen as evil.

I don't like girls/ladies. Women, and actual girls for children, yeah. I don't know why 'ladies' gives me shudders, but it's a bit 'patronising aerobics instructor' I think 😆 I appreciate people don't like 'guys'. It doesn't bother me.

Bernard Righton popped in my mind, a parody of Bernard Manning (loathsome individual)

he had a pop at him but also political correctness, which was hilarious.

The bottom line is I can't see how this could or should affect the outcome of the ET tribunal.

Fife cleared her in their internal investigation..so they can't come out now saying 'we had reason to do x,y,z because she's a racist'

They never considered her racist 'jokes' or inappropriate group chat when they cleared her 2 weeks ago. It wasn't even known or surely they would have taken it into account then and made the relevant referrals to NMC and so on.

Everyone's going to get distracted talking about her character but it's irrelevant to what's happened at Fife this last year.

Agree. It's like rape victims who are judged and devalued for wearing what people perceive to be provocative clothing 'Asking for it'. Or the victims of child grooming who were considered as unworthy and trash.

My 90yo grandparent wouldn't dream of using racist language. I know everyone is different, but age is not a catch-all context. It's relevant, but it's not everything.

There are people where I live who still refer to a shop by the name it had more than 20 years ago, and it's changed more than once since. It's not prejudice, discrimination or antagonism

Using racist terms is different from referring to a shop by its old name.

Some people might use racist terms without malice. That doesn't change the racist nature of those terms.

Some people may claim they use misogynistic terms without malice, but they are still subject to criticism because the misogynistic nature of those terms does not change.

No thank you.

Her health isn't great and she's probably more worried about imminent death than offending someone by saying the P.shop.
I'd rather save my efforts for something that really matters.

Edit: I can't even remember the last time she said it. But I know it has never been said maliciously as in Fucking P shop! so no.

I broadly agree r.e. language but it's worth pointing out that in the "joke" it's the Queen that uses the offensive terms "Pakis" not the joke teller.

Also please be aware that not all of us are non white or have no experience of racism.

From Foran summary it is clear that JR only got these witnesses in at the last minute because they supposedly had useful info about Xmas incident. Fiona has no recollections! JR totally misled the panel to get the racist stuff in — totally trying to win public opinion. Instruction from NHSF as damage limitation.

It's like rape victims who are judged and devalued for wearing what people perceive to be provocative clothing 'Asking for it'

I understand SP's racism is a legally separate issue here, but this does not seem like a good comparison.