"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

@Umbongoumbongo999 I have no idea why you are trying to defend the issue of Rose in the situation, as described.all i can say is it is a jolly good reason to prevent men pretending to be women working in hospitals

And further to my last point, the legislation is the Health and Social Care Act 2008, Regulation 10 which provides the following guidance in relation to dignity and respect :

When providing intimate or personal care, providers must make every reasonable effort to make sure that they respect people's preferences about who delivers their care and treatment such as requesting staff of a specific gender/sex

IANAL, but my comment is that in orgs I have worked in we would have made reasonable efforts to provide an all female team, but this would be impossible in several specialities. If you wanted a hip replacement, or a closure of ileostomy, we would have been unable to provide this. I suppose a patient would know the sex of their surgeon, (although the actual operator may be a trainee, not your responsible consultant) but in reality most of us would not know who was in our theatre team prior to surgery, and in some cases not at all. I had an ENT procedure under GA and the whole of the Real Madrid first eleven could have been there for all I know.

The question is did this trust make 'reasonable' attempts to provide care in line with regulation 10? Is the ability to provide a single sex theatre team one of the allegations of the case or has this been brought up as context in relation to a specific witness?

Surely Tyler would not have been the only ODP available - what if he was away ill?

I'm sorry but I think you've misunderstood what @Umbongoumbongo999 is saying.

They are NOT attempting to defend "Rose's" participation in the surgical procedure in question here. They've specifically said that he should NOT have been allowed to participate in the procedure because he was in a legal employment dispute with the patient and that the theatre manager was wholly in the wrong to suggest that it was OK for him to attend. Fortunately PALS saw sense and he wasn't permitted to be present.

What @Umbongoumbongo999 is saying is that the view that there should always be all-women surgical teams available is simply not practicable and is unrealistic. You can only work with the staff you've got and they are whatever sex they are. You can try to do your best to ensure that a female patient is only operated on by a female surgeon and that only female theatre staff attend, but it can't be guaranteed and it's unrealistic to expect that it should be guaranteed.

But what if the only available replacement was also a man? (And by that I mean a real man, not a trans identifying one.)

I agree that might be unlikely, but it's not impossible.

Personally I'm happy to have honest healthcare practioners of either sex but, if a woman wanted to wait for female only, I can understand that perspective too.

I would also expect healthcare providers with issues of parading around in underwear while harassing women would be sacked.

the issue isn’t just about an all female team. It’s about allowing a nurse privacy and dignity during an intimate operation and avoiding where possible male colleagues being involved. I’m sure that Karen would understand about surgeon and anaesthetist availability but Rose would have been easily replaced.

The fact that there was an ongoing issue involving Rose should have been enough to ensure that he wasn’t involved in the operation. If indeed Karen was threatened with her operation being postponed then I think that adds weight to the argument that the trust were indeed harassing these nurses. It was utterly stupid of the trust to make an issue of this.

But @Umbongoumbongo999 is agreeing (1) tthat Tyler should not have been involved in the operation precisely because of the ongoing changing room issue and (2) that the theatre manager was wholly wrong to sya that it was OK for him to be involved in the procedure.

Nobody is arguing against the idea that the theatre manager's and trust's behaviour here was despicable, cowardly and inexcusable. And illustrative of the trust's unwillingness to deal with the changing room issue appropriately

reality most of us would not know who was in our theatre team prior to surgery, and in some cases not at all

I appreciate that all female surgical teams may not be possible, there are emergencies and so on but this is pretty pathetic planning. I doubt any court would consider it "reasonable".

If reminds me of all the (valid) complaints that junior doctors can't even get their weddings off.

It's also simply not putting the patient first, or acknowledging that many women have trauma or PTSD and being on drugs on a bed surrounded by men well may aggravate that.

As an aside the male-female ratios are shocking. If some woman wants female doctors why not train more i.e. female anesthesiologists? Why not encourage women to train in robotic urology?

Edit: I've actually woken up during surgery, am very grateful to the woman there who calmed me down!

Edited as I had not refreshed the page and seen the discussion over this that had taken place.

The "I was in the army" quote is outrageous. The British army have a well documented problem with sexual assault on female soldiers by male soldiers.

Thanks for the redirect {mention:Manxexile}{mention:Manxexile}@Manxexile,@Manxexile,I was not defending the position that RH was appropriate to be in the team. I was adding context from my own experience around the challenges of staffing all of the requirements of theatres, to draw out whether the trust made reasonable efforts to protect the patient's dignity. I think it's disingenuous for people who have no experience of managing complex healthcare environments to say that it would be easy to replace a particular skillset with a biological woman in this instance.

This is particularly in relation to the robotic surgery element, the team would need sufficient specialty skills eg. Urology scrub, and would also need advanced training in robotic surgery. There is different instrumentation, and practitioners must be competent in emergency undocking procedures to ensure safety. Although we haven't heard this witness testimony yet in court, the narrative up thread was that an alternative site was offered. This would necessarily incur a delay as theatre lists are generally booked 6 weeks ahead.

Also, re training : there are far more female trainees in anaesthetics and surgical specialties now, so we will see change soon. Some specialties are more attractive to women, E.g obs and gyn, breast due to the nature of the work and the desire to advance women's healthcare. Others are still very much a boy's club. The higher training takes so long, not simply a case of 'train more'.

The 'when I was in the military' comment... I have no words...

Also no idea why my post has tagged you 4 times, I can't undo it!

He is deflecting from the hospital's behaviour by examining how the nurses behaved eg; he wants the panel to think that they are hysterical women who whipped up a hate campaign, both at work and in the media, against a colleague whom they may or may not have known. Hopefully, someone from the theatre team will appear and give first hand evidence that Rose told them blah blah blah.

I hope that Rose does appear before the court as that should act as a wake up call, and I really hope that the court does not get sidetracked from the core matter.

I can accept that getting an all female staff in theatre would be hard but Rose would not be the only available ODA. There must be cover for leave. At the very least the nurse should have been told who was available and what her options were. It was inappropriate to gaslight her by saying Rose was a woman.

Is it appropriate for a TIM or any man to be discussing his sex life with female colleagues though (the trying for a baby comment)?

Although i appreciate we haven't heard this from a direct source.

There is another photo online of Rose where his 'maleness' (to put it discreetly) is rather more on show. Like he had no underwear on or had fallen through the holes in his boxer shorts.

Was there an element of exhibitionism on his behaviour at work or out that goes beyond Trans?

does anyone know the full witness list please so we know who to expect and when?

Is it appropriate for a TIM or any man to be discussing his sex life with female colleagues though (the trying for a baby comment)?

I don't think it's appropriate for anyone, male or female, to discuss this with other colleagues, unless they are actually friends.

And I don’t think anyone is saying that a 100% all female surgical staff is required 100% of the time. I am sure KD is fully aware of staffing levels and the issues that fall out from that. But it has been mentioned that it is common practice to ensure that medical staff are looked after by appropriate colleagues to ensure dignity, for example respecting wishes to either have close work friends involved in care or specifically not including them if that is the patients wish. Having a colleague who is involved in a work dispute not involved should have been a no brainer and the surgery manager’s response reveals something disturbing about the culture in this particular trust.

That would still be preferable to having a man (or woman, come to that) who you are in dispute with. Especialy a person you are in dispute with over issues of privacy and voyeurism.

Something that jumped out at me was RH being able to wander around for no particular reason. We constantly hear how short staffed the NHS is and how nurses are struggling to be able to use the toilet during shifts.

He's so fucking untouchable that he can waste time going to places he has no cause to be just so that he can intimidate women. I can't see a woman getting away with it, it just shows that nobody sees him as a woman.

I had a gynae procedure as a day case in the operating theatre I worked in. When the anaesthetist (female, a colleague I worked with frequently) arrived to book me in, she was very cross that I hadn't given her a heads up that I was coming in so she could ensure she had a female assistant that day!

She insisted her (male) ODA stood outside the operating theatre while I was in there and the only man present was the surgeon who I knew and trusted.
I felt very cared for by her, as I was quite young and hadn't wanted to make a fuss!

In my long nursing experience, this was the type of compassion showed by my female (and in fact most male) nursing and medical colleagues. This compassion seems to be lacking in quite a few health professionals today, sadly.

That was nice @IDareSay
I think there are still quite a few staff like that. A colleague who was having infertility investigations was very well cared for by gynae and ensuring only female staff for internal scans etc.

I work in a theatre adjacent procedure area. A couple of years ago I went out to check in the next patient and was very shocked and saddened to find my daughter’s ex art A level teacher (she had left school by then) who had unfortunately developed a very serious illness (nothing intimate). I immediately offered if he would prefer me to step out and hand over to colleagues but he said it would be nice to have a friendly face he knew. It’s not difficult - just common courtesy really.

“The theatre manager also said, “How would Rose feel if she was asked not to come to theatre?”.’
Karen was dumbstruck. ‘I said, “Frankly, and sorry to be blunt, but I don’t care how Rose feels”. It made no sense. Shifts are changed all the time. They didn’t even have to tell Rose a reason, if they were worried about that.’
Karen escalated her complaint, putting her concerns in writing. ‘And I got an email back saying that they could not accommodate my request [for Rose to be replaced]. They said they would cancel the operation, and I could go elsewhere. I couldn’t believe it. I needed that operation, and I’d been with my consultant for years. After everything, I felt I was being punished. I said, “I am asking this as a patient”, but they didn’t care.’”

I wonder who “they” are that wrote that email?
You can’t just ring up another hospital and say “hey my hospital are being unhelpful can I come to you instead?”
A lot of back room juggling goes into getting a patient on the operating list after the surgeon has said “yes you need the op pronto”. The theatre manager could be unhelpful about rostering Rose but would have no part in cancelling the procedure.
It’s really shocking. High handed and vindictive and apparently driven by management out of control.

Yes, I woke up from a gynae procedure to find that my named nurse - expected to take me to the toilet for my first post-op visit - was a former pupil.

The charge nurse immediately assigned another, older nurse for the toilet visit but left my named nurse with me for everything else.

Witnesses for the respondents not known yet.

I think all of the claimants will give evidence and then the expert on SSS.