"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 9

[ThreeWordHarpy]

Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct
Thread 2, 23-Oct to 28-Oct
Thread 3, 28-Oct to 29-Oct
Thread 4, 29-Oct to 31-Oct
Thread 5, 31-Oct to 04-Nov
Thread 6, 04-Nov to 05-Nov
Thread 7, 05-Nov to 11-Nov
Thread 8, 11-Nov to 16-Jan (last thread with the schedule and abbreviations)

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital filed a legal case against their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses objected to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, Rose, who identifies as female. The hearing was held between 20th October and 11th November and was live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have comprehensive information regarding this case on their substack, including archives of the twitter threads, lists of people involved and press releases.

At the time this thread was started, the judgment had not yet been published on the Courts website but was widely reported in the media that the NHS was found to have discriminated against the nurses, but the claims against Rose were not upheld.

It would be unkind to mince, which I have always found to be perfectly literate and not thick.

If only it were that simple. It is not just one policy - the Trans at Work type policy - or even two policies - Trans at Work plus Single Sex Accommodation type policies. Instead it is (often but not always) embedded throughout all possible relevant NHS policies, including chaperoning, underage patients, maternity and breastfeeding policies, etc, etc.

It will take fine tooth combs and someone working backwards through the Stonewall playbook to eradicate it all.

Ah, yes, forgot about all the other policies! I wonder if they could just use the policies they had in place 15 years ago? I suppose some of those might be outdated now, though.

Could it be done centrally, once , then disseminated to all trusts? Or three times, for England, Scotland, and Wales?

Surely things can be changed locally, staff told verbally, and signs changed if necessary, while the policies are being updated?

The idea of x hundred Trusts all individually writing their own (virtually identical) policies did seem absolutely crazy, I must say. Has no MP every queried this?

Perhaps the Darlington Nurses could get all the middle managers in a room for a bit of re education.

Picture of Rose in Holley boxers - a man
Photo of the nurses - not a man.

Pretty simple!

The NHS in all the nations should jointly write a policy. I’m aware Northern Ireland isn’t covered by the Equality Act, but it should still distinguish between men and women in changing rooms.

You'd think... 🙁

Wonderful news. Really wonderful. Those lovely brave ladies deserve nothing less, and a lot more.

Ah, yes, forgot about all the other policies! I wonder if they could just use the policies they had in place 15 years ago? I suppose some of those might be outdated now, though

Some things used not to need to be said at all, like 'using single-sex services for the opposite sex is not allowed' or 'patients who request a same-sex HCP should not be treated by an opposite-sex HCP in disguise'.

How about tearing up the 'trans' guidelines and replacing them with a) don't bully trans people, and b) if staff or patients refuse to use services for their own sex, try to provide a gender-neutral alternative if at all possible'?

What did I miss out?

And if they can’t or won’t admit to being able to tell the difference, they should not be working in the NHS.

Well they wrote it in, so they can write it out.

No excuses.

The Trust has, however, refused to rule out taking disciplinary action against the nurses for speaking about their case, despite the Tribunal ruling going to the media was ‘a protected act.’

I think any further action against the Darlington Nurses would - in Sir Humphrey's words - be a very courageous decision.

I am not a lawyer - I assume that their 'disciplinary offence' was speaking out. But since the Trust was blatantly flouting both the equality law and health and safety laws, this to me would put them in the position akin to whistleblowers.

I wonder what it will be like for them to work there now.

I think so too @Peregrina

I agree they’d be whistleblowers given they only spoke up after exhausting internal procedures and being offered re-education lessons from the man inflicting the sexual harassment.

But like the Scottish Gvt, the NHS seem a glutton for punishment. They might be stupid enough to try something. The Darlington Nurses would go again, and again and win. 🏆

The adherence to this ideology is strong and changing hearts and minds hasn’t followed fast after confirming the law.

They are protected under whistleblowing rules, which would have to lead to another tribunal.

I would say the Darlington NHS are already on shaky ground purely for refusing to rule out further action at this point given the nature of the case. Legally id argue that really they should be very careful.

Yes, surely it could be construed as victimisation.

There are about 200 Trusts of various sorts. The really crazy thing is that all 200 Trusts are individually writing their own (virtually identical) policies not just on Single Sex Spaces but in thousands of other policies on everything from Car Parks to Bullying to Antibiotic choice etc etc The big dirty secret about the National Health Service is that it isn't National at all but Balkanised into 200 different organisations all reinventing the wheel on a daily basis.

Where “reinventing the wheel” often means “cutting and pasting from the policies of the trust nearest us, because of course they must have bothered to get legal advice - which we are too lazy to do -and didn’t just c&p from somewhere else themselves.”

That's what Isla Bumba did in the Sandie Peggie case.

This is such nonsense. So much money could be saved by centralising this.

Yes!

Absolute madness!
The amount of money that would be saved if all policy writing were centralised. And the added efficiency. And improved communication. And increased certainty...

Plus, crucially, you could employ actual clued up experts in the law and regs to write them. Rather than an army of under qualified dummies to copy and paste unlawful dribble.

Too sensible for the NHS, I guess.

This.

Especially because this is despite the Tribunal ruling going to the media was ‘a protected act.’

Have they no shame? Or brains?