{"id":255449,"date":"2025-07-11T06:09:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T06:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255449\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T06:09:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T06:09:16","slug":"nhs-fifes-220000-legal-bill-after-transgender-row-tribunal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/255449\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS Fife’s \u00a3220,000 legal bill after transgender row tribunal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up to the end of March, a total of \u00a3220,465.93 was spent on the case.\"SandieSandie Peggie(Image: PA Wire\/PA Images)<\/p>\n

NHS Fife has spent more than \u00a3220,000 defending itself in the employment tribunal launched by nurse Sandie Peggie<\/a>, it has been revealed.<\/p>\n

The extent of the costs was uncovered following an intervention by Scotland\u2019s information commissioner, who ruled that the health board had failed to comply with freedom of information requests.<\/p>\n

Up to the end of March, a total of \u00a3220,465.93 was spent on the case, including counsel fees and services from the NHS Scotland\u2019s central legal office.<\/p>\n

Ms Peggie brought the case against the health board after her complaint about sharing a changing room with transgender<\/a> medic Dr Beth Upton led to her being suspended.<\/p>\n

The nurse lodged a complaint of sexual harassment or harassment related to a protected belief under section 26 of the Equality Act 2010.<\/p>\n

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Information Commissioner David Hamilton said NHS Fife should carry out searches for data on the costs of the case, describing the situation as \u201cfrustrating\u201d when freedom of information requests were appealed.<\/p>\n

In its response to the requests, the health board said: \u201cThese costs will be reclaimed through the national clinical negligence and other risks indemnity scheme (CNORIS).<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder 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.<\/p>\n

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

Ms Peggie has publicly welcomed the UK Supreme Court judgment which in April made clear the terms \u201cwoman\u201d and \u201csex\u201d in the 2010 Equality Act \u201crefer to a biological woman and biological sex\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said that she \u201cexpects NHS Fife to immediately stop permitting any man who identifies as a woman access to female-only, single-sex spaces in the workplace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Maya Forstater, chief executive of the gender critical campaign group, Sex Matters, which is supporting the nurse, told The Herald newspaper: \u201cThat 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conservative MSP Tess White said the costs had been released in a \u201csleekit\u201d way.<\/p>\n

She said: \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.<\/p>\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 mismanagement.<\/p>\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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Up to the end of March, a total of \u00a3220,465.93 was spent on the case.Sandie Peggie(Image: PA Wire\/PA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,2270,8545,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-255449","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-nhs-scotland","11":"tag-scottish-national-party","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114833114355454694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255449","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=255449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}