"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 5

[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&7)
Thread 4, 29-Oct to 31-Oct, TA, AM (day 7) JB (day 8)

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, NHS trust Head of HR
TA – Tracy Atkinson, NHS trust HR.
AM – Andrew Moore, NHS Head of Workforce Experience
JB – Jillian Bailey, NHS Workforce Experience Manager

Maybe your ward was different (hope so) but I never sleep well in hospital, with or without added pain. Have you tried probiotics? My rheumatologist says you need to take them for time on antibiotics + 1 month so you'll need a big bottle! Take care and thanks for all that work you did for us all.

Seconding this @MyrtleLion
I'd recommend to take S. boulardii (a yeast) during AB treatment and then Lactobacillus, either L. rhamnosus or L. helveticus (or both) afterwards.

Regarding the hypertrophic managerial class in the NHS, and what they do all day, one thing that strikes me is that there has been a blurring of the line in recent years between HR and organisational branding in the NHS.

One witness explicitly spoke of the trust's need to attract more students by appearing as 'inclusive' as possible in their changing room policy (which clearly prioritises marketing over compliance). And, in general, NHS policy documents (in my small experience) tend to be written around 'trust values' which are thrashed out in branding meetings and plastered on all the hospital noticeboards.

I genuinely think that a lot of people working in HR/managerial roles in the NHS (and in quite a lot of other orgs) have lost sight of simple legal compliance as a standalone objective.

Branding has become such a massively pervasive priority. I guess this was (at least initially) in response to the introduction of the internal market . But it has taken off big-style in recent years, in all organisations and even for individuals.

Anyone who so much as writes a blog these days habitually thinks in terms of 'personal branding' - and making use of all the little frills that tech offers in that respect. And so any old manager - not just the trust's marketing dept - can easily slip into branding mode when they are working on policy documents and other elements of their job. Much, much easier, when working on a policy, to make sure that it incorporates all the approved buzzwords rather than, say, reading the 1992 Regs and commissioning a technical survey of health, safety and welfare provisions in a building.

And the currently pervasive preoccupation with branding gets supercharged when it meets one particular area of compliance - equality. It is the arena, above all others, in which nice words and lovely font colours etc, can be mistaken for the real world tasks of equality. It is easy for people to con themselves that the tasks of equality belong entirely in the world of appearances (not in, say, the real-world fact that healthcare workers of colour were much more likely to be working in dangerous frontline roles during covid, and are more likely to get severer outcomes in disciplinary processes).

So people really believe that they are doing their job properly if they have endless meetings to ensure that the trust's 'mission statement' is accurately reflected in all of its various health, safety, welfare, equality, etc, policy documents. They genuinely believe that operating in the realm of appearances is what is required of them.

To an extent, this reflects what has happened in wider society. We've all been sucked away from basic materiality into the endlessly reshapable online world. In fact, that is the context that has partly facilitated the whole transgender phenomenon: The material reality of sex - just like the material reality that lies behind nicely formatted policy documents - is demoted as people choose self-branding over substance.

Thanks, this was an interesting read. I see similar things happening in academia and science. . I'm honestly not sure if I'd go into science if I were at an age to make this decision now.

I’m just skimming at the moment but much of that ET seems to hinge on an inept and ill thought through PowerPoint presentation (a particular bugbear of mine). The judgement is really well-written, quite a gripping account.

And, just to add to my (already long!) post , another trend that causes managers to sit complacently in the realm of appearances (versus reality) is the culture of tendering and auditing. Both of these activities require the construction of "deliverable outcomes" (and similar concepts) that serve as measurable proxies for real-world healthcare objectives, achievements and failures). Initially intended to monitor and improve care, they have the effect that the entire NHS machine is compelled to chase these proxies, often to the detriment of their real-world role. In mental health (the area in which I have some small experience), this often means that patients are taken through nightmare box-ticking admin exercises, in place of encounters that are genuinely therapeutic - just so the staff member can accurately fill out the record of the encounter that her employer's software requires of her.
All fine, all good, so long as the patient record includes appropriately filled-out boxes. Not so fine for the patient - or indeed the staff member who, after all, wants to actually help people.

One witness explicitly spoke of the trust's need to attract more students by appearing as 'inclusive' as possible in their changing room policy (which clearly prioritises marketing over compliance).
**
IIRC @BigGirlBoxers Leonardo also stated attracting the next generation of talent as a reason for their “inclusive“ policies

I see a couple of familiar names for the Respondents.

I skimmed the early part too and TW seems to have a staring role and be inept at people management… also suggests that people fall into 2 camps in theatre: team TW or not team TW. A clash of strong personalities. And the Trust won on most of the claims, but lost on how they handled the grievance process ie following their own policies. Doesn’t seem like the Trust (in particular HR and the effectiveness of its policies) learnt anything from that experience.

Interesting that it is ok in NHS to talk so openly about age profile of workforce and succession planing. I only have experience of academia where that is an issue and it certainly wouldn’t be discussed openly in a meeting - huge sensitivities around it and people would go nuts!

(Off topic, but that earlier tribunal shows why it is hard for people (often women) to get jobs that they are over-qualified for, even when they are desperate to take any job or need to step down for health or caring reasons - difficult management dynamics for both the more junior and the more senior workers.)

Oh and their Trust’s policy defines a grievance as “a cause for concern” so I think that’s why we’ve been getting so many concerning concerns.

Sorry if I've missed this, but have they got to the bottom of who it was that put up the inclusive changing space poster?

Yes. TW gave convincing evidence on this point. A number of lesbian nurses, totally committed in their support of Rose Henderson, put it up to show support. There was also an element of self-interest in that they were worried that if RH was banished from the changing room they'd be too.

Surely you mean “lesbian” nurses?

See, that's what happens when you completely fabricate a story in a hurry.

I missed that bit. I saw it as she knew who it was but saw no need to investigate because it was taken down straight away. 'Lesbian' nurses would make that make sense. I wonder if it would have been investigated if it had read 'Biological women?'

This is such a sharp observation and clear explanation. My own NHS organisation is an example of this constantly faffing about with straplines, “our values”, various awareness days and the latest a menopause cafe and drop in sesssions. For all people affected by menopause and of course held at an inconvenient site during “your lunch hour” a concept alien to lots of frontline staff 😮

TW discovered a stack of hitherto unsuspected "lesbians"

To avoid confusion caused by my jokey post above, if I recall correctly, according to TW the sign was put up by other nurses who were supportive of RH. However, if you put that into the context of her evidence in general, it is possible that she made this up to fit into the narrative she's decided is the right one.

I am so looking forward to RH testifying. Scheduled for 4 Nov.
I am not watching but following on here.
These threads are invaluable.

@BigGirlBoxers Excellent posts, thank you - I hadn't considered the "branding" thing but now you've pointed it out, I think this is a big factor (not just in the NHS but other institutions too).

It was a good post. There seems to be a large group of the lanyard class who are doing jobs that at first glance look like their actual job but on closer inspection are not. Similar to but not the same as the concept of bullshit jobs.

It's irrelevant if there are nurses who are supportive of Rose in the changing room, even if there is a whole legion of them. They can't consent on behalf of the other women.

So has TW been in front of this judge in the previous case linked above?

How many of these Rose-supporting nurses were there (given that 1 is a number)? Though also, if Rose was living as a woman at that stage, presumably he himself was a "lesbian" which makes the scare quotes seem reasonable.

Has this been confirmed somewhere?