Ms R Rees v Cardiff and Vale University Local Health Board — 2025

The tribunal upheld the claimant’s complaint of constructive unfair dismissal. It found that, taken cumulatively, the respondent’s failures were likely to destroy or seriously damage trust and confidence and were without reasonable and proper cause. Those failures included inadequate engagement with the claimant’s staffing and lone-working concerns, the way night shifts were imposed in summer 2022, the mishandling of her request to reduce hours, delays and errors in handling her request relating to care for AT, delays in sickness-management contact, and serious defects in the grievance and grievance appeal processes.

On staffing, the tribunal did not accept that management wholly ignored the claimant’s concerns, and it accepted that wider staffing problems and recruitment pressures were real. However, it found there should have been direct discussions with the claimant about why Island Ward cover was not working for her in practice, particularly by September 2021 and again in July 2022 when she said the situation was affecting her health. It also found it was unreasonable to roster her onto a series of night shifts without prior discussion and unreasonable not to remove her temporarily from those shifts pending occupational health input.

The tribunal found the handling of AT-related issues was mixed. It held that RP should have dealt with or referred on the initial special-leave request before going on leave, KH’s later refusal of permission while the claimant was off sick lacked an evidential basis, and KM responded too slowly, although KM’s eventual confirmation that the Health Board could not stop the claimant providing respite care was not itself a breach. It also found there were unreasonable delays in sickness-absence management, especially from September to October 2022 and from October 2022 to March 2023.

The tribunal was especially critical of the grievance process. It found the grievance was not adequately driven forward, that documentation and terms of reference were poor, and that both the grievance outcome and appeal outcome failed clearly to record which complaints were, in substance, upheld in part. It held those shortcomings, together with delay in providing the appeal outcome in December 2023, were the final straw. The claimant therefore succeeded in unfair dismissal, but her Equality Act claims failed because the tribunal found she was not disabled before 27 October 2022 and therefore the section 15 and reasonable-adjustments complaints were not made out.