{"id":251354,"date":"2025-07-09T17:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251354\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T17:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T17:47:09","slug":"nhs-fife-reveals-220k-legal-bill-in-sandie-peggie-tribunal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/251354\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS Fife reveals \u00a3220k legal bill in Sandie Peggie tribunal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n We had asked for the costs incurred in the case brought by Ms Peggie, a nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n The board repeatedly refused to release the information.\n<\/p>\n

\n Initially, they claimed the data was personal and exempt from being released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. They later argued that disclosing the costs could assist Ms Peggie\u2019s legal team, or offer other law firms insight into billing expectations for future NHS work.\n<\/p>\n

\n They also suggested it could endanger staff.\n<\/p>\n

\n The commissioner rejected all the reasons given by the health board.\n<\/p>\n

\n In his investigation, David Hamilton found that NHS Fife had not undertaken any searches in response to the request for information.\n<\/p>\n

\n He ordered them “to carry out adequate, proportionate searches” and to reply to those who had asked for the information by Monday July 14, 2025.\n<\/p>\n

\n They have not yet replied to The Herald, but details of the costs were quietly published on the board\u2019s website on Monday.\n<\/p>\n

\n The statement said: \u201cNHS Fife can confirm that, as of May 31, 2025, a total of \u00a3220,465.93 has been incurred in legal costs relating to an ongoing Employment Tribunal case brought against the board.\n<\/p>\n

\n “This figure includes Counsel fees and services provided by NHS Scotland<\/a>\u2019s Central Legal Office.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThese costs will be reclaimed through the national Clinical Negligence and Other Risks Indemnity Scheme (CNORIS). Under CNORIS, NHS Fife\u2019s financial liability is limited to \u00a325,000, which ensures that the legal proceedings do not impact frontline clinical or patient services.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cNHS Fife is not in a position to estimate the full cost of proceedings while the Tribunal remains ongoing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Peggie, an A&E nurse at Victoria Hospital, is suing her employer after being suspended following a confrontation with Dr Upton.\n<\/p>\n

\n On Christmas Eve 2023, she experienced a sudden heavy period and was concerned she had bled through her scrubs. When she entered the changing room and saw Dr Beth Upton, a trans woman, she said in her view, the medic was a man and should not be in the room.\n<\/p>\n

\n Dr Upton made a formal complaint shortly afterwards. Ms Peggie was placed on \u2018special leave\u2019 in late December 2023 and suspended in January 2024, pending an investigation into \u201calleged unwanted behaviours towards another member of NHS Fife staff\u201d.\n<\/p>\n

\n Her suspension was lifted in April, but the disciplinary process remains ongoing.\n<\/p>\n

\n She then lodged legal proceedings in the employment tribunal against NHS Fife and Dr Upton, \u201calleging multiple breaches of the Equality Act 2010″.\n<\/p>\n

\n The tribunal was initially scheduled to conclude in February after ten days but has been adjourned until July 16. It is expected to sit for a further 11 days, in part due to NHS Fife\u2019s failure to disclose documentation as ordered by the tribunal judge.\n<\/p>\n

\n There are also questions around whether the board complied with legal obligations by allowing Dr Upton \u2014 who does not hold a gender recognition certificate \u2014 to use a single-sex facility.\n<\/p>\n

\n Under the Equality Act 2010, public bodies are required to assess and review proposed new or revised policies or practices. The Herald has previously reported that NHS Fife did not carry out an impact assessment when allowing Dr Upton to use the female changing room.\n<\/p>\n

\n NHS Fife has also come under pressure to concede the case following the Supreme Court ruling that the terms \u201cman\u201d and \u201cwoman\u201d in the Equality Act refer to biological sex, not acquired gender.\n<\/p>\n

\n Scottish Conservative MSP Tess White said: \u201cThis sleekit decision from NHS Fife only adds insult to injury.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey have spent months rejecting legitimate requests to reveal how much taxpayers\u2019 money they are squandering on this case, only to try and slip it out in the hope nobody will see it.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe sum spent so far taking Sandie Peggie to a tribunal could have gone to frontline healthcare services which are overwhelmed due to 18 years of SNP<\/a> mismanagement.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cSenior figures within the health board must come clean about why this figure was not revealed sooner and how much more money from the public purse they expect to waste when the case resumes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Maya Forstater, CEO of Sex Matters, said: “That NHS Fife has already run up \u00a3220,000 in legal costs to date is outrageous, but also unsurprising given the determination of so many employers to defend policies that permit trans-identifying men like Dr Upton to use women\u2019s facilities, even though the law is clear that female employees have the right to male-free facilities.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n “It\u2019s bad enough when employers are spending their own money on defending the indefensible. When it\u2019s taxpayers\u2019 money that\u2019s being wasted, as in this case, it\u2019s scandalous.”\n<\/p>\n

\n More to follow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We had asked for the costs incurred in the case brought by Ms Peggie, a nurse at Victoria…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11105,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-251354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114824533966433490","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}