\n The senior official at the health board suggested Ms Peggie should have gone to her line manager instead.\n<\/p>\n
\n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Peggie, an A&E nurse at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, is suing her employer after being suspended following a confrontation with the transgender medic on Christmas Eve 2023.\n<\/p>\n \n When she entered the changing room and saw Dr Beth Upton, 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.\n<\/p>\n \n Following their complaint, Ms Peggie was placed on \u201cspecial leave\u201d 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 During the subsequent investigation, Dr Upton made further allegations about Ms Peggie, including a claim she left a patient \u201cunseen\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n All four gross misconduct allegations were dismissed by NHS Fife on Tuesday following an investigation.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone told the tribunal that Ms Peggie had raised concerns in August 2023 by email.\n<\/p>\n \n NHS Fife had taken advice at the time, she said, and determined that Dr Upton was entitled to use the female changing room.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone told the tribunal: \u201cI find it unacceptable that any colleague would confront another colleague in the manner described.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cI think that was already raised back in August. I wouldn\u2019t have expected that to be face-to-face on Christmas Eve.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n She added: \u201cThe female changing room was not the right space to raise concerns.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Asked by Ms Peggie\u2019s counsel, Naomi Cunningham, whether there was any way for Ms Peggie to express her views about sharing facilities with a trans colleague without facing discipline, Ms Malone said: \u201cI believe there were other options. She should have taken it to her line manager.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Later, during further questioning, Ms Cunningham asked: \u201cSo it was discriminatory to raise the issue at all?\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone replied: \u201cYes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The tribunal also heard evidence about the decision to suspend Ms Peggie. Ms Malone said this had followed a risk assessment conducted by the nurse\u2019s line manager, Esther Davidson.\n<\/p>\n \n When asked whether she had seen the risk assessment herself, she said: \u201cI can\u2019t recall.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n A document from NHS Fife HR discussed the matter, stating: \u201cWe discussed suspension being last resort and options to mitigate risk\u2026 Esther felt it would be almost impossible to keep them apart so spoke to Gillian Malone\u2026 she believes there is a patient safety issue due to seriousness of the allegation and therefore wishes to suspend.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cunningham suggested this showed Ms Malone was \u201cessentially behind the decision to suspend.\u201d Ms Malone insisted: \u201cIt was Esther who completed the risk assessment.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n Read more:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n The hearing also raised questions about how the internal investigation was handled, particularly regarding confidentiality.\n<\/p>\n \n The tribunal heard that on December 29, 2023 \u2014 four days before Ms Peggie was suspended \u2014 Dr Kate Searle, Dr Upton\u2019s line manager, emailed more than 20 NHS consultants with Dr Upton\u2019s version of events.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone said she disagreed with that decision.\n<\/p>\n \n \u201cIt should not have been handled in that way,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone agreed it was inappropriate, though she did not directly respond to a question about whether the \u201cintegrity and confidentiality\u201d of the investigation had been \u201chopelessly lost\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cunningham contrasted this with the treatment of Ms Peggie, suggesting there had been an effort to prevent her from discussing the case or speaking to colleagues who may have shared her concerns.\n<\/p>\n \n The tribunal was shown an email referencing a July 2024 media inquiry, which although not naming either party, discussed the case in detail. Ms Peggie was later reminded of her duty to maintain confidentiality.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone rejected that suggestion, saying she did not believe Ms Peggie\u2019s gender-critical views were being \u201cintentionally suppressed\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n The tribunal also heard Ms Malone agree that there are two biological sexes and that sex is a \u201cmedically salient fact\u201d.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cunningham asked Ms Malone about a hypothetical male NHS worker called Peter, who walked in on a female colleague changing. She asked the manager if that violated boundaries and if she thought it was an example of sexual harassment.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone said it was unwanted behaviour and harassment.\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cunningham then asked if a male member of staff had installed a webcam in the female changing room, whether that would count as sexual harassment.\n<\/p>\n \n She said it would and she agreed he would be suspended.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Cunningham then asked what would happen if Peter said he was a woman \u2014 would the investigator say he was obviously a man and not trying to change?\n<\/p>\n \n Ms Malone agreed.\n<\/p>\n \n During re-examination by counsel for NHS Fife, Jane Russell KC, Ms Malone was asked if, based on her knowledge of the allegations on Christmas Eve, she believed Dr Upton had sexually harassed Ms Peggie.\n<\/p>\n \n The witness said: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t believe Dr Upton sexually harassed Ms Peggie. I believe it was unacceptable behaviours, unprofessional behaviours, which warranted investigation.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n The tribunal continues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The senior official at the health board suggested Ms Peggie should have gone to her line manager instead.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":270410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-270409","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\/114870870574164127","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270409","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=270409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}