In person For the v Respondent — 2022

The claimant, a Black locum ENT doctor, joined the respondent in January 2020 to cover maternity leave. The tribunal found that her contract was temporary and subject to statutory notice, and that in April 2020 the respondent moved to end locum and agency arrangements because of Covid-19 and financial pressures. The claimant was given one week's notice on 28 April 2020 to end on 5 May 2020. The tribunal found the termination to be consistent with the respondent's wider cost-cutting response, and noted that a white locum consultant, Dr Muller, was also dismissed.

The tribunal rejected the claimant's race discrimination case, including the dismissal complaint and the 10 pleaded incidents said to amount to harassment and direct discrimination. It found no evidential basis for less favourable treatment because of race, no basis to apply the burden of proof in the claimant's favour, and no evidence that a hypothetical white comparator would have been treated differently. It also accepted that the claimant was not excluded from team interactions, was not criticised behind her back, was not denied nursing support as alleged, and was not denied on-call rooms or theatre sessions because she is Black.

The tribunal likewise rejected the allegation that the claimant was ignored or treated in a hostile or dismissive way, and found no evidence that on-call accommodation was deliberately offered only to Black or ethnic minority staff. It held that the claimant's final-week pay dispute arose because Mr Gray queried the hours claimed against the rota and login records, but the respondent later paid the claimant in full for the hours it accepted. The claimant's accrued holiday pay claim also failed: the tribunal accepted that holiday pay had been rolled into the hourly rate by a 12.07% uplift, and although it referred to Robinson-Steele and Lyddon, it held the holiday element had already been paid transparently and comprehensively, so no separate award was due.