18 days, 18 mistakes

Sandie Peggie, a nurse with a 30-year unblemished record, dared to challenge a man in her changing room. Sandie refused to accept that a man was a woman, and for that heresy, the hounds of hell were unleashed.

After 18 days of testimony, I have some observations on where NHS Fife's case is rather weak.

1.      Denied Sandie the right to a single sex changing room. 

The witnesses were unaware of the 1992 Workplace Act or the Equality Act Exceptions. They googled EHRC guidance but read only the first sentence in the paragraph relating to transgender people and ignored the rest of the paragraph, which detailed the exceptions.  In any case, the guidance was for service providers, not employers.

2.      Did not inform the nurses and other users of the changing room that a man would also be using their changing room.

3.      Does not have a policy for transgender employees and how to lawfully accommodate them.

4.      Sandie contacted a senior nurse about her discomfort of having a man in the female changing room. She was not provided with details of the NHS Fife complaint or escalation process. This is particularly relevant because when asked what Sandie should have done (rather than approaching Dr Upton directly), witnesses say 'complain through the normal process'. Sandie had complained and got nowhere.

5.      Prejudged the complaint by taking Dr Upton’s word for what had occurred without speaking to Sandie. Did not check that Sandie was OK after the changing room incident. Suspended Sandie without hearing her account of the incident.

6.      A senior doctor embellished the Datext report with words not said by Sandie nor reported by Dr Upton.

7. Breached confidentiality when a senior doctor emailed 19 consultants with Dr Upton’s side of the story. This e-mail contained expressions of support for Dr Upton and condemnation of Sandie.

8.      Potential collusion between witnesses, investigator, and complainant, when an e-mail group and chain was created to keep each other informed and avoid ‘foot in mouth’.

9.      Interfered with a potential witness (an auxiliary nurse) who backed Sandie’s rebuttal of the patient safety allegation. A senior doctor approached the witness and discussed the case.

10.  Appointed a witness as the investigating officer.

11.  Allowed a witness to accompany Dr Upton to his interview.  This also caused the order of interviews to be rearranged.

12.  HR made a transcript of Dr Upton's interview from a recording of the interview. HR allowed Dr Upton to edit that transcript with the assistance of a single HR representative on a Teams call for which no minutes or revision notes were taken.

13.  Suspended Sandie without a Risk Assessment, which is against policy.

14.  Informed Dr Upton but not Sandie Peggie of a change of investigator.

15.  Allowed Dr Upton to provide a file containing images of his notes, the notes that he claims to have made contemporaneous to the patient safety incident. However, the IT Expert testified that the details of the patient safety incident were not contemporaneous but were added after the changing room complaint.

16.  Attached the file provided by Dr Upton of images of his notes to the NHS Fife’s IT witness statement. This gave the impression that NHS Fife’s IT witness had created the file.

17.  Included the patient safety complaint in the list of charges against Sandie. This is despite knowing the complaint was rebutted by the auxiliary nurse who was present.

18.  Took 18 months to clear Sandie of all charges.

But NHS Fife’s biggest mistake was to underestimate Sandie Peggie.  Her strength of character, composure under fire, and her willingness to fight, not just for herself but for every one of us.

“You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise."

- Maya Angelou