"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 4

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, KD (day 1 of evidence) and BH (day 2).
Thread 2, 23-Oct to 28-Oct; BH (day 2), CH, JP, MG (day 3&4), TH, SS, ST, LL (day 4), JS, AT (day 5)
Thread 3, 28-Oct to 29-Oct, AT (day 5&6), TA (day 6)

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 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 Seamus Sweeney
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
SW - Sue Williams, NHS Trust HR
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, claimant
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany
CH – Carly Hoy, claimant
JP – Jane Peveller, claimant
MG – Mary Anne (aka Annice) Grundy, claimant
TH – Tracy Hooper, claimant
SS – Siobhan Sinclair, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust
ST – Sharron Trevarrow, witness for the claimants, retired from Trust, former housekeeper and wellbeing officer
LL – Lisa Lockey, claimant
JP – Professor Jo Phoenix, expert witness
JS – Jane Shields, witness for the claimants
AT - Andrew Thacker, witness for the respondents, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, witness for the respondents, NHS trust HR.

The respondent witnesses are useless, they may as well have put 3 mystical fortune tellers on the stand, we would get more sense out of them.

Not one of them can actually pinpoint by name who is responsible, it's always some BS department name.

'perhaps even a threat of a lawsuit from the grifting kimono fox killer.'

Hardly a threat 😂

We're back in the room

"A Head of Workforce Experience is a leadership role responsible for designing and implementing strategies to create a positive and engaging environment for employees throughout their entire lifecycle at a company. They collaborate across departments to align employee experience initiatives with company goals, using data and feedback to improve processes like onboarding, culture, wellness, and internal mobility"

This sounds as though it could have been lifted from a scene in W1A.

Why's he all slumped? His posture is shocking. Like a sack of spuds

Please don't summon up a Director of Better.

Defeated. Hopefully.

TT's 1st of the afternoon tweets

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1983886571591049368.html

I love NF's approach, very different from NC's but very effective. He's just made me laugh out loud

NF please go to para 23/24. To round off the story of the initiative re possible CR works. A new facility was made available. Ms Gregory’s office being cleared. By this point you knew this issue had been coming up since July 23. No change in circumstances for those raising complaints. 26 nurses had taken collective action and no policy review.
AM a review has started
NF March 2025. No consideration whether harmful in that entire time. The CR remained in constant use, by female employees and by Rose.

Just back after short trip away. I was worried last week that Beth H was too chippy and looked too combative defending covert recording on the ground she didn't trust her HR department. But the TT of the last couple of days proves that not only was her attifude entirely justified, but her strength and presence of mind has shown this venal bunch to be exactly what she thought they were. Apologies Beth, warrior of the wards

TT

NF please go to para 23/24. To round off the story of the initiative re possible CR works. A new facility was made available. Ms Gregory’s office being cleared. By this point you knew this issue had been coming up since July 23. No change in circumstances for those raising complaints. 26 nurses had taken collective action and no policy review.

AM a review has started
NF March 2025. No consideration whether harmful in that entire time. The CR remained in constant use, by female employees and by Rose

Darlington HR boss denies saying nurses need trans educating - BBC News

NF you’ve listened to the meeting recording, employees sense of frustration? AM that’s how they felt.
NF we see you speak ‘there’s the trans issue and potential behaviour issue’ would you describe allegations about Rose’s behaviour as being something you’d not heard before ?
AM no just more detail.
NF July 2024. Whether we were aware of any suggestion of a conduct concern. The way I read your statement, you weren’t aware.
AM I was aware but we get more details in meetings

NF you gave Ms Newsom and Ms Williams as part of 2024 resolution procedure. You’re recounting the meeting ‘there’s was something is not heard before’ what they were describing was alleged behaviour in July 2024 - you thought it was about using the CR but now it was about behaviour.

I have a hunch I'll be searching out W1A on iPlayer this evening (I'm sure I read that Ian Fletcher is going to be doing something for the LA Olympics - football related?).

Anyway, a useful stat that should concern the Head of Workforce: "Latest NHS Digital figures show there were 12,400 days lost due to staff absences in County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust in February*.
Of the days lost, 4,000 were due to anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illnesses".

Source: https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/24436029.one-third-absences-county-durham-nhs-stress-related/

from BBC
She repeatedly told the tribunal she had wanted to "understand" what the concerns of the nurses were.
When challenged by Employment Judge Sweeney what she was unclear about, as the issues in the letter were "readily understandable", Mrs Atkinson said she understood what the nurses were saying but it was the solution that she was trying to work out.

I can't believe how complicated it is to get a man out of the women's changing room!

TT
NF no one disagrees with- you felt those in the room agree with the plan.
AM Plan was about inspecting the current estate and work as a collective to a workable solution

"She repeatedly told the tribunal she had wanted to "understand" what the concerns of the nurses were."

Could the BBC be getting a bit salty with their use of quotations marks?

AM Plan was about inspecting the current estate and work as a collective to a workable solution

The long-awaited 'workable solution' the 'collective' came up with was to find somewhere inadequate and not fire-risk-assessed for all the women, while leaving Rose to enjoy the CR.

Is there a translation of this into English?

I’m getting a sense that unlike the last two witnesses, that this witness is feeling rather sheepish about the actions of the trust.

He looks like he might cry.

My observations before the break were entirely consistent with a PP who described this witness as sullen and lumpen. He also muttered his responses. And at times went the same colour as AT.

However, he did appear to be making an attempt to give honest answers and not dissemble too much. Even if the honest answer was a variant of "I don't know".

Oh, the nurses in the room cupboard of shame solution? Got it, thanks MDG.