Ms P Sanson v Forth Valley Health Board: 4105339/2020
| Judgment Date | 14 October 2021 |
| Citation | 4105339/2020 |
| Date | 14 October 2021 |
| Published date | 22 October 2021 |
| Court | Employment Tribunal |
| Subject Matter | Public Interest Disclosure |
E.T. Z4 (WR)
EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS (SCOTLAND)
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Case No: 4105339/2020
Held in Dundee on 30 & 31 August and 1 September 2021
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Employment Judge McFatridge
Tribunal Member A Shanahan
Tribunal Member E Hossack
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Ms Pauline Sanson Claimant
In person
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Forth Valley Health Board Respondent
Represented by:
Mr Davies,
Solicitor
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JUDGMENT OF THE EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL
The unanimous judgment of the Tribunal is that the claimant’s claim of detriment
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for making public interest disclosures fails. The claim is dismissed.
REASONS
1. The claimant submitted a claim to the Tribunal in which she claimed that
she had been subject to various detriments as a result of making protected
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disclosures. She claimed under section 47B(1) of the Employment Rights
Act 1996 and Regulation 3 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (NHS
Recruitment – Protected Disclosure) Regulations 2018. The respondent
4105339/2020 Page 2
submitted a response in which they denied the claims. The claim was
subject to a degree of case management and a final hearing took place
over three days. At the hearing the claimant gave evidence on her own
behalf. Evidence was led on behalf of the respondent from Anne Lackie
a Practice Education Facilitator with the respondent, Anne Cook a Service
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Manager (previously Clinical Nurse Manager) with the respondent,
Lorraine Robertson Head of Mental Health Nursing with the respondent,
Ellen Margaret Hudson Deputy Nurse Director with the respondent and
Angela J Wallace Executive Nurse Director with the respondent. Michael
Brown Head of HR Resourcing for the respondent had originally been
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asked to attend the Tribunal to give evidence on behalf of the respondent.
He was in attendance on the morning of 1 September however the
respondent’s agent advised that having considered matters overnight he
no longer required to call Mr Brown. The Tribunal enquired of the claimant
whether she wished to take advantage of Mr Brown’s presence to call him
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as a witness for the claimant and the claimant stated that she did.
Mr Brown thereafter gave evidence on behalf of the claimant. A joint
bundle of productions was lodged. On the first day of the Tribunal the
claimant sought permission via email to lodge certain copy emails. The
respondent did not object to this and these were added to the bundle.
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Some were, in fact, already in the bundle. The claimant sought permission
to lodge a video however the Tribunal did not consider this to be relevant
since on the basis of the information before us it appeared to be a generic
video available on the internet from a member of staff at Stirling University
confirming that they worked closely with the NHS in the training of nurses.
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The Tribunal heard direct evidence in relation to this point from a number
of the respondent’s witnesses. In any event the claimant did not raise the
matter in her own evidence or at any point. On the basis of the evidence
and the productions the Tribunal found the following essential facts to be
proved or agreed.
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Findings in fact
2. The respondent is Forth Valley Health Board. They are a medium sized
health board in Scotland providing for health care needs of around
400,000 people in the Stirling and Clackmannan area. They have around
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3500 nursing staff. As a health board they are closely involved in medical
education and maintain close links with a number of higher education
facilities including Stirling University.
3. In 2019 the claimant was a third year nursing student enrolled at Stirling
University under their Pre-registration Nursing Programme. This
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programme lasts three years and is divided into six semesters. As part of
the course students undertake six placements to provide them with
practical experience usually one per semester. In June 2019 the claimant
had completed five of the practical placements and was engaged on her
final placement at Ward 5, Forth Valley Royal Hospital. The claimant was
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training to be a Mental Health Nurse. Wards 1-5 at Forth Valley Royal
Hospital are the mental health wards. The claimant had previously
completed a placement in Ward 2.
4. The placement in Ward 5 was to be the claimant’s final placement. As
part of the placement process each nursing student is assigned a mentor
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or a mentoring team comprising of a nurse or nurses on the ward who are
responsible for ensuring the student’s professional development during
the placement. The mentor (or mentoring team) requires to sign off the
claimant’s satisfactory performance at the end of each placement. Each
student requires to maintain a document folder known as an OAR. This
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document is essentially a log of the various placements and experience
which a student has undertaken. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure
the safety of this document. At the end of the final placement it is the
responsibility of the mentor (or mentors) who are dealing with the final
placement to review the OAR in its entirety and then sign off the student
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as being fit to proceed to be registered as a nurse. Each placement would
usually last 12-14 weeks.
5. During the course of her final placement on Ward 5 the claimant wrote a
number of emails to the charge nurse who was in charge of the ward. This
behaviour was considered unusual since the charge nurse is either
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available on the ward or available in the charge nurse office which is
immediately next to the ward. Usually communications in the ward setting
would be made face to face. None of these emails were lodged for the
Tribunal. The charge nurse reported her concerns about the emails to
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