"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 2

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Link to Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, evidence from KD (Day 1) and BH (Day 2).

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital have filed a legal case suing their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses object to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, Rose, who identifies as female. The NHS trust’s HR department dismissed the nurses’ concerns, stating they should “broaden their mindset” and “be educated”. More details can be found at Sex Matters and at Christian Concern who are supporting the nurses via the CLC.

The hearing started on October 20th, with evidence starting on October 22nd and is scheduled to last 3 weeks. To view the hearing online, requests for access had to be made by October 17th. The hearing is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have background to this case on their substack. An alternative to X is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets

The Judge made clear at the start of the public hearing on Day 1 that only TT or press have permission to tweet. If online observers see/hear something in the court that isn’t reported by TT, we don’t mention it until the next time there’s a break. This is a very cautious approach to avoid any accusations of “live reporting” on MN. Commentary on the content of TT tweets is fine as soon as they’re posted on X.

Key people:
C/Ns - Claimants, the Darlington nurses
R/T/Trust - Respondent, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
J/EJ – Judge/Employment Judge
NF - Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for claimants
SC - Simon Cheetham, KC, barrister for respondents
RH - Rose Henderson, trans identifying nurse
CG – Clare Gregory, ward manager
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, second claimant to give evidence
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany

Other abbreviations:
WFTCHTJ – Waiting For The Conference Host To Join
ET - Employment Tribunal
DMH/H – Hospital, Darlington Memorial Hospital
CR/CF - changing room or facilities
IX - internal investigation
XX – cross examination

I really want one of the witnesses to ask “What do you mean by fully transitioned?”. Neither the GRA or EA2010 require anyone to take hormones or have surgery.

If they say someone who has surgery - “ how are you proposing employers confirm that?”

NC would have been all over that I hope NF is.

I'm not sure how the operation can be fitted into the tribunal. Morally and logically it is of course very relevant, but as PP said it's strictly speaking a patient/care provider issue rather than an employment one.

However, part of the reason for objecting to Rose was because of the ongoing employment dispute - it would have been inappropriate even if Rose were an actual woman. And it sheds light on organisational culture. And it sounds as if KD approached a colleague with the request rather than going through the normal patient channels. So I think a good legal team should be able to bring it in.

If they say someone who has surgery - “ how are you proposing employers confirm that?”

Also, what surgery? It's pretty common (and understandable) to have the lower risk stuff like breast implants and.possibly a bit of facial feminisation but avoid the much more drastic high-risk and irreversible genital removal and construction.

they should have engaged more with the resolution process

I got the impression the claimants so far have said they wouldn't engage with it (although they did to some extent) as a result of legal advice. If so, that was bad advice.

The respondent is making good progress in developing an argument that the claims were filed before the resolution process had had a chance to advance. Again, I'm wondering about poor legal advice.

I think the whole ambush situation was a breach of trust, add to the two year delay in even bothering properly makes the subsequent actions of the nurses entirely justifiable.

I saw a tweet by KJK which suggested that one female panel member was naturally light grey but had dyed her hair red/orange/blue/green/yellow. I hope I misinterpreted the post as it is such an obvious political statement the claimant should have asked for a recusal.

Yes, it's a management failure, but if you are in that position you still need to find some sort of resolution. Not all managers are good at dealing with this sort of thing, they may have never had to properly enact the policy before.

I've been in a position where I trusted my manager to take something forward for me, and raised it through the correct channel to do so. She didn't, and because I was trusting that she would I didn't follow anything up in writing. It was only after escalating it that I started to double and triple check policies and keep email logs and timelines. If you haven't had to deal with that sort thing, and I don't know, but I imagine nurses don't have too much in the way of work emails(?), then this is a very alien and worrying process. It seems like there might have been some poor legal advice given, but how are those in the middle of things really meant to know and understand that at the time.

The idea of a resolution process is rather ridiculous anyway. There was only one way to resolve it and it didn’t require the nurses involvement - the man be removed from the female changing room.

I don't understand what you mean by this. How and why would you ensure an all female team to provide treatment for a female staff member? Would you do this for all female patients or just those who are staff, and how practical is this? Would your all female team include a female surgeon and a female anaesthetist? How about the registrar or SCP assisting? And any trainee anaesthetist SpRs? In the trust I used to work at we had no female orthopaedic OR general surgeons. Over half of the gynaecologists and 70% of the anaesthetist were men. The scrub lead for gynae and the ODP lead were both men. How could the NHS ever assure complete single sex teams and still provide the skill sets required to give good care? If a person is qualified, they should be able to provide care in a team situation for a specialist procedure.
If there is a known dispute between the patient and the person providing care, that is of course a different matter.

I would expect that if two female nurses were in a dispute, and one didn't want the other one present at such an operation, the other one would be asked to do other duties instead. Unless said nurse was the only person in the hospital capable of doing the job at that particular operation (unlikely).

If would expect that in this situation, with a man and a woman in dispute, the man would be sent anywhere else on his shift than attending the operation.

It's unbelievable and really upsetting that they wouldn't say no to him. That they had no concern for the woman's privacy. That they couldn't see how traumatic it would be for her. That they just didn't care about her, and it was all about validating his feelings voyeurism.

TBH, all the evidence so far (holey boxers, staring at the women, hanging around longer than necessary, asking them when they were getting changed) shows him to be a complete creep.

The Telegraph has a photo of Rose not looking at all intimidating.

That's from this article, where Rose is referred to as a biological male.

Nurses given ‘kindness training’ after criticising trans colleague’s access to changing room

https://share.google/rpQgjYLhOoAdtpgIh

I do wish this week's ET could be picked up as a question in PMQ as the government seem content to let the "most marginalised and oppressed" do rather a lot of oppressing, either directly or indirectly.

So much money being spent to defend women's rights to single sex spaces!

Maria K
Darlington nurses

Then there is Stonewall.....

I thought it was from the meeting with all the nurses and the two HR reps but I may have that wrong.

I just want to respond to someone upthread who seem to think that the nurse due for an intimate operation is not an issue for the tribunal, as she was in that situation a patient.

The claimant cannot be separated in to two different people with different needs and feelings.

The fact that the claimants were already making noises about the man in their changing room.

Even if for arguments sake the theatre manger was in law correct (which obviously they were not)

it is the sheer basic lack of humanity and empathy, which is as a mattter of fact a requirement of health professionals.

i think it the most egregious action i have ever been made aware of in all my born days.

I am very confident the nurses will win, perhaps not all of the claims.

i don’t think Naomi is needed in this case because it is so bloody extreme and awful.

The 'order of witnesses' discussion may have come about as someone (i think one of the nurses) was scheduled for Monday but can't come in now
There was a letter or note given to the panel earlier this week. Maybe by one of the lawyers?

It's here: https://x.com/tribunaltweets/status/1981289752763515346

The fact that the trust staff were willing to delay her operation if she didnt allow Rose to be there is an indication of how toxic the atmosphere was and why the nurses had to resort to legal action since it was obvious the resolution process was not going to be in any way impartial.

Yes it's a pity they did not engage more with the process but you can see why they had no expectation of anything coming from it except "re-education", "kindness training" and possibly disciplinary action.

really hope at least one witness was told directly by RH they were trying for a baby. If not that is potentially harassment/bullying of RH particularly putting it in the public domain.

I can't remember where I read this but Rose apparently claims they weren't trying to conceive. But the discussion was "hypothetical".

I don't know what that means but it sounds like Rose said something that most people would reasonably conclude meant "trying for a baby".

I hope his wife is clearer on the situation.

Perhaps, "if my wife got pregnant before the summer we will get a hot tub"?! 😜

To make it all the weirder I'd imagine this convo whilst they are chatting during surgery...

I think it fairly obvious in any workplace there is gossip.

it is no surprise to me that the gossip would have ramped up considerably when a man is in the female changing space

i have no clue why the defence homed in on it.

HI Banned, if this is in relation to my post, that was a question of the practicalities of providing an all female team (surgeon and anaesthetist inclusive) where the Poster had suggested she would treat a female member of staff differently to another female patient. This was a question based on my 15+ years of working in healthcare. No organisation I've worked in would be able to do this easily. Nor could we guarantee an 'all white' team, an 'all-English' team or any other single characteristic. The workforce in the NHS is too diverse, yet at the same time, often too specialised to dictate a group of 7-10 people who could be made available at the same time with the appropriate training and skills. If the procedure was robotic, I would suggest a likely shortage of skills in this area.

I was not disputing that it would be appropriate for a person to expect NOT to be treated by someone they were in an HR or legal dispute with, whether directly or indirectly.

To be very clear, I am in support of the nurse complainants in this case, hence my following this thread with gratitude to all who are keeping the updates flowing

Okay @Umbongoumbongo999 but women as a matter of fact do have an absolute right to require a female team in intimate procedures, and Rose was a mere technician easily replaced so your defence fails.

Whilst i agree on other occasions that might not be possible

I appreciate your response. I'm not arguing the point of law but providing some context to the staffing of theatres from my own experience. An ODP is not a mere technician. They are a skilled member of the team, with 3 years of basic training plus experience and potentially advanced training. I don't know what level of training RH had achieved. He is obviously qualified and passed his competency assessments and qualifications. Theatre staff train in specific disciplines and they don't all train in every area. My last trust has 2 surgical robots, and we had trained perhaps 8 scrub staff in total to assist in these lists.

There are specific instruments in robotic surgery, and safety protocols that are different to traditional open or laparascopic surgery which require training at an advanced level. You couldn't substitute an orthopaedic scrub for a robotic General surgery or urology scrub (most common robotic procedures). Not many urology scrub staff would train in robotics, and not all robotic trained staff would be competent to scrub in urology cases.

In relation to the advice from the trust that on skill mix grounds they would not be able to fulfill this request, this reflects the practicalities in my experience.

If I were team lead, I would do my utmost to keep warring staff apart if one were to be a patient. It just wouldn’t be worth the risk of further complaints or, if something were to go wrong, for there to be anything to suggest there might have been anything other than a desire to provide the best care involved. If one of the warring pair actively requested to be involved in the operation of the other I would consider it a big red flag.

I would also consider it a red flag for a trans identified male to seek to by trained in gynae surgery.